Episode Nine: Earthfall: Sledgehammer PT2
by Errationatus2
Summary: Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, where do you turn and who do you trust? Everything's been leading to this. Who falls, who rises? Who gets left behind? It's been forever but the story of the 'Pirate' Crichton finally returns! Rated M for language and situations and overall dradness.
1. Prologue

**FARSCAPE**

**_UNREALIZED REALITIES:_**

**THE FREEBOOTER ERA  
**

* * *

**Previously, on _Farscape_:**

* * *

_The crew of the _Vengeance _is in dire straits: Crichton is trapped in a pain induction device that makes the Aurora Chair a picnic by comparison, John has begun working on a viable wormhole weapon, which has driven a rift between him and Aeryn, Miriya has been separated from Iriya whom Stark has now implanted in a dead woman's body, Haxer is slowly going mad and Chak'sa is trying to recover from an attempt at a live dissection! In the meantime, General Williams has launched a counterattack against occupying Peacekeeper forces, and Scorpius prepares to bombard the planet in retaliation! The Monitor, watching from afar, has decided enough is enough and has launched a weapon to stop the Carrier..._

**AND NOW, ON FARSCAPE:**

* * *

**SLEDGEHAMMER:**

**ASHES TO ASHES**

* * *

"'_How many coincidences,' a man once asked his companion, 'do you need to happen to understand nothing is by chance?'_

'_At least one more,' his companion answered."_

- _The Road Remembers_, by Utha Neema, 12th Level Pau of The Roj Ganoj School.

* * *

**PROLOGUE**

**THE CARRIER FIRED TWO SHOTS. **

When they struck, the Forward Hammonside cannon gave the city of Colorado Springs, Fort Carson, it's military bases, soldiers and civilians all had the dubious distinction of being the first major casualties of an "alien attack". It was nothing Hollywoodian – a survivor, one of only seventeen of the approximate half-a million dead – reported a sound like rolling thunder, then something "_as if God clapped his hands hard – once_", and the thirty metre deep Colorado Memorial Crater was born. The monument at its centre – an elaborate white marble headstone some fifteen metres in height with many, many names, would cost three million dollars to erect and be designed by a famous Asian sculptor. The kneeling, weeping angel that crowned it would cause some controversy, as these things always did – it was black, skeletal, gothic and grim - clutching a single white marble rose.

The dust cloud from the explosion lingered over Colorado for three weeks before settling. Later analysis found it as far north as Rapid City, as far south as Roswell and while good taste would have forbade any mention of "alien-made dust" in Roswell, the media is not known for its tact nor some locals trying to profit from it. So it always goes.

Cheyenne Mountain, forewarned because of the PK contingent holding it, had locked down. Even so much of the base had been damaged by the shot, though it had hit only a few metres south of the US Airforce Academy Airfield.

The Treblinside shot had hit Salt Lake City dead-centre. Casualties were total. Tragically, Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake became one.

Forests were flattened in every direction. Fires would burn for almost a month before being completely extinguished. Like New York, people would complain of lung ailments. Several groups would attempt to sue the government for compensation.

The media howled and went into complete psychosis. There would be television retrospectives for years, and the UFO conspiracists would enter their golden age of being considered almost credible. Reluctantly, the American President declared war on the invaders, openly acknowledging that aliens had attacked and were in force on Earth.

US forces mobilized. Early sorties into Colorado spotted a Marauder on the outskirts of La Junta, and US forces managed to destroy half of La Junta and kill 300 more humans and five Peacekeeper scouts - three troopers and two techs - before _actual_ PK forces were found and engaged.

The 300 'collateral damages" were blamed on the five Peacekeepers and their "murderous alien technology".

Eventually real targets were found and engaged, and the battle for Earth truly began.

Sebacean survivors of what would one day be called the "Crichton Solution", would not be looked upon with any magnanimity for quite some time. They would be quietly trained and acclimated by the government and eventually folded – carefully – into the public, although they would always be watched. Their contribution to human advances would never really be acknowledged in any meaningful way for several generations but eventually, like anything, regardless of media persecution, controversy and advocates from every side, time would shorten memories.

But it would take a very _long_ time.


	2. Step One: Have A Plan, Sort of

**IT DIDN'T LOOK LIKE A WEAPON.** In fact it looked for all the universe like a black pineapple on its side with spiky leaves leading. It came at the Carrier dead-on and stopped _precisely_ 55.55 motras from it. Small ballistic cannon targeted it, but to no effect. Larger pulse cannons targeted it, but again, it suffered not a scratch. A probe was sent to investigate it. At 54.55 motras from the object, the "pineapple" opened and fired a small glowing orange bullet that blew the probe to powder and impacted the hull of the Carrier, to burrow through as if it were a hot ash through paper.

Auto-repair closed the hole it made.

It chimed, once, a sound not heard in nearly 300 million years. Then the fist-sized slug began to spin, the chime winding in intensity the faster the slug spun.

When the sound became painful, it erupted in an unbelievable burst of impossibly-intense white light, so bright that witnesses claimed to be able to see through the ship as if it were transparent – discounting the fact that they weren't blind from the intensity, even though they weren't.

The light faded and took all other light with it.

The slug continued to spin and to chime.

The Carrier darkened.

All of it.

Every instrument, every generator, every light, switch, conduit feed, every mechanical part and even those things just swinging freely through random motion lost power. Not all of it. Just enough to render the mighty vessel functionally useless, but not enough to damage the crew.

It was a tribute to the professionalism of the crew that while everyone was startled and concerned, perhaps on some level frightened, there was no actual chaos, just the seeming chaos of a crew immediately setting out to determine the problem and seek solutions. A ship five kilometres long and three wide not counting Frag Cannon and tracks - and only a six-tenths of the normal complement even at half-power could survive a long while.

There _were_ wormhole-shielded lockers with sensitive military equipment therein – the Peacekeeper versions of Night-vision goggles, weapons, emergency fusion cells. But they couldn't run a whole Carrier. When they were extracted from shielded areas, the device stole their energy as well.

There _was_ a spot on the great ship that still had power, a room ringed with shunts based on wormhole tech, powered by generators churning with energies plucked from event horizons and exotic particles changed with ancient energies.

Deliberately isolated from the rest of the ship, they were not allowed to deviate from their tasks. Driven by one man's obsession and perhaps more than one, even in the midst of crisis they toiled on.

* * *

**PROWLER PILOT OFFICER NERIDA DEMAN** watched the Carrier go dark and snarled. A quick check of her trackers netted her a track to follow.

"_Fifth Sector picket,"_ she commed. "_On me. Weapon track indicates origin 111 Dekka. Altering patrol to investigate."_

Twelve affirmatives and she hit the throttle as her fellows fell in behind her.

Whatever had the temerity to attack a Peacekeeper Command Carrier was about to be rudely surprised.

* * *

**IN THE LAB, JOHN HAD SURPRISED HIMSELF** with the speed the thing was coming together. The techs around him were well-versed in, if not wormholes precisely, then the forces that shaped them, or prevented them, made them stable, made them erratic. Tech Captain Ereel was extremely knowledgeable but she was mostly attitude. _Bad_ attitude.

"…it's because they tend to twist back on themselves." She was telling Tech Renaa. "Torsional stresses can impact…"

"With all due respect, Captain, it's not torsional stresses _liquefying_ our pilots. The Prowlers never have a scratch."

"What do you think it is then?"

"It may be Ranthath Flux, or a variance in overcharged electron bursts…"

"Excuse me – what's this about?"

"That's classified." Renaa told him with a dismissive attitude that rankled him.

"'Liquefying pilots'." John fixed her with an annoyed gaze. "Tends to draw one's attention. You're talking about adverse effects on Prowler pilots inside wormholes, aren't you?"

Ereel gave him a condescending look of her own.

"It's irrelevant to your assigned task, Crichton."

John shrugged.

"If you say so. I've been in and out of them in my 'antiquated' ship and never had so much as a sniffle. But, hey – irrelevant, like you said." He wandered away.

"Well why then?"

"That's likely irrelevant to your assigned task." Crichton mimicked. "Not like _I'm_ the resident wormhole expert or anything."

"Your understanding is very advanced," Ereel told him, trying to mollify him, having not really realized how her attitude came off. She doubted any Peacekeeper realized it. It was a natural as breathing to simply assume they were superior. "It is only a matter of terminology."

"No, no… you know better than I do. I honestly don't even know why Scorpius bothered to come all this way when I'm just this big walkin' pile of primitive irrelevancy." He pointed to his workstation, his tone reasonable. "I'll just wander over there and get back to picking fleas off myself, shall I?"

John walked away and returned to his machine, waved a tech aside and began fiddling with connections. Renaa and Ereel exchanged looked and a moment later realized what they'd done. The tech he'd shooed came back with a component and waited until he looked up.

"What?" He demanded of the man as the two head techs came into earshot.

"I had meant to ask… what is the purpose of this design?" He tasked, pointed to the machine dominating the centre of the room, to which they were both approaching. It was tall and cylindrical, with massive power shunts and generators on either side. It had an entrance and approximately eye-level claw-like protrusions pointed down. He pointed to the 'claws'.

"It's just an interface," John replied, speaking as if he was trying to reach a complete cretin, even though the majority of techs treated him with professional civility. "It's a mnemonic field receptacle with an energy pulse amp bent into a Mobius loop that generates a direct neural feed directly into your brain that _should_ allow anyone direct control over the machine. Just think it and it happens." He smirked, spoke as if they were children. "Monkey juju. Too savage and unsophisticated for you lot."

"This is hardly productive." Renaa told him. Ereel nodded in agreement.

"What? Oh, sorry… I have to attempt to align five separate magnetic intensities across a unstable electrically-charged gas injector and keep them within millimicrot tolerances to generate usable power for the hevex shunts." He crossed his arms and turned to look at the machine. He frowned and pursed his lips. "Unfortunately I left my bone rattle and magic beads at home." He sighed over-dramatically and scratched his posterior. He threw his hands up. "Oh, well. Ooga-booga, Chattanooga, I'm screwed."

"The circuit fabrication team can…" she began.

"No, no, _no_!" he interrupted, "I wouldn't dream of interfering in anyone's extremely important work building a device to control the very _fundamental fabric of the universe using my personal design schema_." He waved in a motion intended to get her to leave. "The generators are combiners with regulators that stagger the feeds from the reactors." He muttered again. "They are loopers that will increase the energy output without overtaxing the reactors. It's extremely efficient. For a primitive." He chuckled to himself. "If I could install it on a car, it'd make a single tank of gas last for five thousand miles."

He glanced back at her.

"You still here? If you can choke down your nausea long enough to get one of your minions to fetch me something that can redirect the power flow from a hevex shunt, I'd appreciate that." He pulled a chair over, sat. "I can wait."

Ereel bit back a frustrated comment, felt a headache spring up behind her left eye. Her orders were to cooperate and be efficient, to give all possible help to have this device created, completed and ready for use. This device was essential_. Essential_. She took a deep breath and tried again, complimented him on the intelligence and efficiency of the design, because he _was_ very intelligent and she _was_ actually impressed.

He was unmoved.

"No, better yet, get _Scorpius_ on the horn and tell him I want techs that care more about _the work_ and less about their prejudices. Until then, I'm not doing squat." He smiled an insolent smile. "Any time." He made a motion of picking an flea from his shoulder and flicking it away.

Ereel glared at him, nodded once and stalked off, pulling Renaa after her.

John smiled to himself. That should buy him some time. He knew he was walking the edge of a razor here. He couldn't afford to finish this machine in any real sense but he had to give them _some_thing. It had to look good. If he had to piss off the Superior Techs there to do it, well, whatever, he could do that easy. There was a blue spark from one of the reactor feeds and a tech cursed, locked it down. It was an extremely efficient design, and unlike the rest of the contraption, those had been _his_ idea.

He had looked at the feasibility of jinking up something similar to be employed in nuclear reactors – it'd make them a hundred times more powerful and almost completely safe – the design even used the radiation spillage as fuel. If he could someday implement everything he'd planned…

… his statue would be half-a-mile high. He would almost single-handedly change his entire world and species, and his name would be remembered for generation after generation – humanity's greatest benefactor – hell, in many ways, its _savior._

He smiled at the machine taking shape before him. If he could wing it, maybe… if he could tweak it… if he could design the interface for a Sebacean brain… it was capable of enormous destructive power. _Apocalyptic_ destructive power. One use and both Peacekeepers and Scarrans would vanish as if they'd never been, he'd rid the Universe of two malevolent races and do it from a safe distance. With this weapon, it _was_ possible. He hadn't worked it _all_ out yet – how to build in the 'off switch' to stop it so it didn't consume the galaxy it was deployed in – wherever the hell the Peacekeeper galaxy was – but he was reasonably sure he could. Was genocide ever justified if it literally saved uncountable billions upon billions? Could he make that decision? Would they force it on him? How ready should he be if it came down to it?

How close _could_ he allow himself to get to becoming a god?


	3. Step Two: Have A Step One

"**HAX – WHAT DID YOU DO NOW?"**

Miriya's weary voice came seeking him in the sudden drop of blackness.

"Mayhem I'm good at," he replied lightly. At the moment, he was still holding on to his present personality. "But it wasn't anything _I_ did." His eyes adjusted as best they could but it wasn't enough. He could feel Ander – the "old" Ander – still raging underneath and knew his hold was questionable at best.

"Real ship dark." He muttered. Chak'sa at his side heard him, her hand warm in his cooler one. He didn't have to see her to know she had the quizzical smile he knew so well on her face.

"Of all times make sense _now_, please."

"In a ship without portals – when all the power goes down, there's no ambient light. Real ship dark. No dark quite like it."

"You reminisce the oddest things."

"Odd is as odd does, kid." Quiet laughter from her. Hax's mind churned. If there was ever a time to get off this ship, it was now. Somewhere in the back of his head, he heard Ander making new demands, shouting orders. He knew his mind was in a fragile state and he struggled anew to keep it in one mindset he could control.

"The troopers have left or else they are as bewildered as we." Thadon said in the silence that followed.

"That will not last." Shiv pointed out. Miriya coughed.

"Yeah – hey, you and Shiv… you can see pretty well, can't you?"

"We can," Shiv answered her. "But 'pretty well' is subjective."

"You can probably see damn-well better than any of us," Miriya corrected her. "Enough to get us out of here?"

"From the looks of things, this is no normal power failure." Hax pointed at the barely-there light sources on the emergency med-beds, even though he couldn't be seen. "This is a med wing with a hundred independently-shielded generators and even those are barely functioning."

"Most doors should have manual cranks." Miriya pointed out.

"I dropped an emergency bulkhead. They _don't_ just wind open." Haxer reminded her.

"I can see you all as vague shapes, if that helps," Chak'sa said at his elbow. She squeezed his hand. She also sounded very weary and he could only guess at the pain she was in.

"You're forgetting someone." Haxer told her. "Stark."

From his position by Akanke's – now Iriya's – bed, he knew what Haxer meant, sighed quietly to himself …and lifted his mask.

Light flooded the room, and Haxer nodded. Cha let go of his hand.

"Any downside to you doing that for an extended period?"

"I would simply rather not," Stark told him.

Hax nodded and smiled to himself.

"Cha – here's a dumb question I should have asked long ago - are your weapons here?" Her face was drawn and paler than usual, dark bruises under her eyes, her flesh raw and newly scarred. Fresh anger speared through him but he squelched it. That led straight to Ander and he was far from being reasonable.

People would pay he vowed. Pay _dearly_.

"I do not know," she told him, voice breathy with pain. "I saw no one leave with them."

Haxer stalked off and did a quick circuit of the medbay then found a locker he proceeded to kick open with gusto and thrust her _Dra'ak'ka_ into the air with a triumphal flourish. He returned to her and held it out.

"I would have hated to have lost it," she told him with a faint smile.

"You don't look right without it." He looked away as Miriya groaned and swung her feet off her bed. "I hate to ask, but…"

"I will do what is necessary. Of course." She sighed and checked her staff over then put it in its place at her waist.

"You I never doubt, Cha." He rubbed his head which ached ferociously.

Miriya pulled herself haltingly to her feet and made her slow way to Iriya to check on her.

"She's gonna need better help than this bed. No way near conscious yet. Frell – I'm surprised I am." She leaned on the bed, puffed out a breath. "I was used to taking over this thing, but that was just pulling levers, not driving the whole machine …which means I can move myself – mostly, but that's going to be _it_, sorry."

"How serious are you?" Stark asked her.

"I think the parts that cognate are operating all right but movement, balance and coordination are sporadic. I'm having to _think_ each step I make. It's _annoy_ing but not debilitating. Don't expect much."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault, Stark." She sent a glare at Haxer, relented. "I'll get there."

"I'll carry Iriya." Haxer looked at Chak'sa, who nodded. Yes, she could make her own way. He pulled Iriya off the bed, put her into a "fireman's carry".

Shiv's calm voice noted, "The observation office. It will have a door."

Haxer got a good grip then nodded.

"That should do nicely. It should open into the medtech offices and then out into the Trunkway. We're only a few levels from where the _Vengeance_ is moored. Shouldn't take us long. Shiv and Thadon can divert any unwanted attention?" Two nods, almost in tandem. "You good until the offices, Stark?"

"Yes."

"Good. You and our Thantados friends feel free to lead the way. Let's get going. We've already been on this Carrier far longer than necessary." His anxiety was rising and his hands shook and he couldn't tell if it were his own present state or Ander clawing his way up. He could only try and deal with it as it came.

With an unanimous agreement, they made their way out with Stark, beacon-like, leading the way.


	4. Step 3: Pay Attention to Details

**CHIANA GASPED AT THE DARK BILLOWING STAIN** on the planet below and checked the ship's sensors, gave D'Argo a grim look as he circled the Earth. Behind them, Talyn came into view, after Crais had agreed to a run on the Carrier.

"_They have fired on the planet."_ Crais told them unnecessarily.

"How bad?" He asked, not really wanting to know.

"Bad." Chiana checked again. "_Really_ bad."

D'Argo arced away from the planet, pointed _Lo'lhaa_ at the Carrier. Talyn followed.

"Whatever happened," D'Argo told them. "The _whole_ Carrier is dark now. Reading barely any emissions at all."

"_Talyn reads active power sources, Ka' D'Argo, but he says something is blocking access to them."_

"Whatever it is, it's the perfect chance to hit this thing." Chiana rejoined. "For all we know it's some onboard thing. We should hit them now."

"_Talyn states he believes that he would be better served attacking ground forces and aiding the humans."_

"I'm not disagreeing with you." D'Argo said. "But you might just make it worse." He jabbed a thumb between his eyes, rubbed hard for a microt. "We'll never get a better chance to hit this Carrier." He primed the forward gun, asked Crais. "How many motivators does that say one of those Cannon has, anyway?"

He bore down on the Carrier, wanted to unleash _Lo'lhaa's _considerable firepower on the thing, knowing he couldn't. Not yet. Talyn dropped gracefully beside them.

"_Four per Cannon." _Crais sent telemetry. The image pulsed in a few spots. "_That one, and another one on the other end of the track. We should only have to destroy one to lock them down, at least. There's the main power trunks to the Cannon, but those are too well-shielded – unless we can blow the motivators_."

"Prowlers are still active," He pointed out. Pinpricks of light on his tracking sensors showed them darting about. The Carrier may be down but the Prowlers kept on their patrols. He knew that he'd have to drop his Shroud to shoot anything, hoped he could take a few Prowlers out along the way. The last thing he needed was to get swarmed by fifty of them. This may have been a Research Carrier with more techs than soldiers but it was still a formidable beast.

"Time to get fancy," Chiana chimed, as if reading his thoughts. Initially it had been an impulse but they'd never get a better chance to actually inflict real damage. _Now_ it was a mission of revenge. She was tired of being passive and not helping when they could. She saw D'Argo nod and _Lo'lhaa_ banked, accelerated at the Carrier. Talyn arced over the Carrier, heading to the other side, counting on his speed over lack of a Shroud.

The first shot from _Lo'lhaa's_ forward cannon sliced through the housing holding the fusion plants that powered the fifteen-story motivator assembly that actually pushed a huge Frag Cannon along on its track. The fusion plants blew with a series of explosions that D'Argo barely managed to avoid.

"Okay – _that's_ significant!" D'Argo grunted as he pulled his ship in a sharp arc over the nuclear fury below him. A smaller chain of explosions began and a large chunk of the track blew apart with a silent fury.

"Very!" Chiana added, holding on. _Lo'lhaa_ raced toward the other motivator and it blew in the same way. He speared the next motivator fusion plant and watched it vanish. As he peeled away from the carrier, he dropped a couple of mines, hopefully to catch some of the Prowlers starting to swarm the explosions – he pondered it.

"Crais, you were right - the Carrier looks dead but the power sources are all _still_ active."

"_Indeed. Talyn has crippled our targets, but secondaries were larger than they should have been were it a complete power failure."_

"What the frell happened in there?"

"I'd bet real money it's something Crichton did." Chiana stated with confidence. Her eyes narrowed as proximity and weapon lock sensors started chiming.

Behind them, a dozen Prowlers dropped onto his tail. A couple hit his mines and vanished. A few actually managed to hit _Lo'lhaa_ and send her shuddering. He wondered just what Crichton could have done to knock out an entire Carrier but had to put it aside as _Lo'lhaa_ took another hit aft and his attention was justifiably diverted to more immediate concerns.

"_Talyn is coming under fire from Prowler pickets. We are disengaging." _Talyn roared overhead and dove back for Earth. Time to leave, definitely. "_I see no reason not to aid the humans, now, Ka'D'Argo. I am proceeding with Talyn's recommendation in that regard."_

"Just target _carefully_, Crais."

"_Of course."_ Talyn dove into the atmosphere and disappeared.

Behind them, another chain of explosions began to ignite along the track and Chiana whooped as explosions began to climb the side of the Carrier. They petered out after a few microts.

From what they could see, Scorpius' fangs had been drawn. D'Argo felt a ferocious grin spread across his face.

"I would say you had definite instincts on _that_, Chiana," D'Argo turned his grin to her, dropping an evasion canister before activating the Shroud.

"I'm not just a pretty face," she smiled back, watching the canister fragment and catch a Prowler, blowing it apart. "Although I _am_ a _very_ pretty face."

The canister fragmenting dumped enough phased radiation to blind the Prowlers' sensors long enough for _Lo'lhaa_ to vanish.


	5. Step 4: Don't Sweat The Small Stuff

"**ALL POWER GENERATION DOWN BY NINETY-ONE PERCENT, SIR!"**

A few of the techs had managed to string a series of handheld illuminators around Command but it was still very dim. Braca, in no good mood looked at the woman's grimy face before him.

"We're trying to chain emergency generators to get Command to functional power, Captain." She continued.

"Thank you, Tech Javin. Proceed with researching how to alleviate this. _Lt. Manan_!"

"Yes, sir!" The lieutenant handed him a tablet.

"Braca?" Scorpius. His white face looked even more pallid in the dim light.

"Report, Sir, such as it is."

"Proceed." Scorpius appeared very calm but Braca knew it was a façade. Until they figured this out, they were extremely vulnerable. Explosions had rocked the ship not but a few hundred microts before but without sensors they couldn't know anything. All had waited in high tension. All troopers were being diverted to weak spots, hatchways and airlocks but it would take time deploying them in the pitch darkness.

"Some kind of weapon, Sir. Origin unknown, it has rendered us mostly powerless."

"Perhaps the platform we first encountered entering this system."

"Unknown, sir."

"'Your guess is as good as mine', Braca?" Scorpius seemed faintly amused.

"Yes, sir."

"A truism at this point. Go on."

"It _is_ likely, Sir, I simply have no accurate data. What we _can_ piece together is this weapon is either a disruptor or an extremely powerful dampener. It resists all weapon fire, all attempts to physically interfere with it. Tech Lt. Manan supports the dampener theory because while we cannot _access_ full power all generators _are_ still functional."

"That might explain the explosions earlier." Scorpius mused. Lt. Manan shook her head.

"No, sir. I have just received a report from exterior crews - our Frag Cannons have been attacked and the tracks wrecked. The forward Hammonside is still operative but the damaged track will allow only limited acquisition. The rear Treblinside is not damaged but has had its power feeds smashed. Their opposite counterparts are inoperative. Secondary chained generators suffered a cascade and also blew. All sections between 444 _Frei _and 786 _Jova_ will be powerless even if we can stop the dampener." Scorpius blinked and looked angered for all of a few microts. "We lost 135 maintenance techs and 225 troopers when they blew. All sealants had to be manually closed. We estimate we've lost approximately twelve percent of breathable atmos in the time it took to seal the breaches."

"Remarkable thing to do in the dark, Sir," Braca added, hoping to mitigate some of Scorpius' anger. It didn't really matter. Humans had nothing that could have countered them anyway. Scorpius thought about it, cut his losses and nodded. Losing some of the functionality of the Cannon seriously hampered them but the humans didn't know that and couldn't. For the most part, the odd platform they'd attacked seemed to only interfere at anything overt. He had underestimated it and would be more careful in the future.

"Yes, very good indeed. All are to be officially commended for their actions in this crisis." A tech suddenly cried out that she had managed to access a generator but was quickly abashed when power flared and then died in the same microt. No one chastised her for the biting "frell!" she ejaculated the microt after that.

'Anything else?"

"I can have all available mech-techs on the tracks but it will divert significant resources. Prowlers chased off the attackers but without proper coordination, I decided to keep them patrolling the Carrier, so they don't come back. It also seems all devices will work _outside_ the ship. I have put several tens of troopers on the hull in shifts, sir, from the shipboard reserve. They are watching for any more movement or attacks, relaying through personnel stationed from airlocks to us. It's diverting people but in all frankness we don't have much else."

"Your idea, Braca?"

"Yes, sir." Slightly taller at that.

"Progressive thinking. I knew you would excel when I made you the captain of this ship."

"Thank you, sir."

"John?"

"It's still the only section with full power, sir. Your shielding is holding. None of the personnel have been told, nor has Crichton."

"Excellent! He can continue uninterrupted." Scorpius smiled. "Most fortuitous." Braca's next sentence had him frowning.

"Apparently there's an issue, Sir. At the moment he is refusing to work, citing what he calls 'unprofessionalism' on behalf of the staff."

"Is there a concern of contamination on behalf of the techs, Braca?"

"It's possible, sir."

"Was it not conveyed that they are _exempt_ from such concerns in this instance? I need Crichton _working_, not this nonsense!"

"I took the liberty of informing them, sir. Tech Captain Ereel insists it's just Crichton's misunderstanding."

Scorpius' frown deepened.

"_Demote her_, Braca. She obviously cannot be trusted to put aside her prejudices long enough to do her duty!"

"Sir – Ereel _is_ very efficient and quite knowledgeable…"

"She can be reassigned to track repair, then, Braca! I want it made known – " he turned to the rest of the Command, raised his voice, "so that there is no doubt whatsoever – that the wormhole tech and the work Crichton is doing is _the single most important thing _happening on this vessel until I say otherwise! Let that be understood in no certain terms. I will tolerate no deviance and no obstructions of any kind!"

"Sir, she really is the best we have for this." Scorpius eyed him balefully for a few more microts.

"_Whatever_ it takes to keep work moving, Braca. If Crichton wants the techs working _naked_, they will comply _instantly_, is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. Ah, to continue… a number of sections have been locked down, sir – emergency bulkheads closing, things of that nature. At least two-fifths of ship's personnel are behind those bulkheads, so until we open them, we're technically understaffed. I have teams as relays to those sections, as well. So far, we've no way in." A pause. "We've also lost track of our 'guests'. I have hunting teams of infra-equipped troopers searching for them if they manage to leave the med-section."

"They are as much in the dark as we are, Braca. They have nowhere to go."

"As you say, sir. We did manage to destroy two of the Human population centres, sir. Unfortunately we can't monitor battle progress."

"It will either make them docile or stiffen them further. Either way, these Humans have no technology sufficiently advanced enough to hinder us."

"Indeed, sir. All techs of the proper expertise are investigating everything they can to alleviate this. Unfortunately, all attempts to bleed any power off from the shielded lab for ourselves has failed."

"That would support the theory that the device _is_ a dampener." Scorpius glared at the Captain. "There are _thirteen thousand_ techs on this ship, Braca. Redouble efforts to impede or destroy it."

"Yes, sir. Manan! You find a way to shut that thing down and you can have Ereel's job."

"Sir!" a salute and she jogged away. Scorpius nodded at him, put his arms behind his back, paced away, came back, appearing contemplative.

"This Carrier cannot stay this way. We are too vulnerable. With the majority of our soldiers on the planet… the Humans may be primitives but we have all seen as to what primitives may do when desperate."

_And now wounded,_ Braca thought, but knew better to say aloud.

* * *

**ON EARTH, THERE WAS NO TIME TO MOURN.**

The shots from space had done nothing to human morale but make it savagely stiff. Peacekeepers began falling back through the rubble and human military forces pounded them relentlessly. Even with their inferior technology, they were beginning to take a toll. Ground commanders began to wonder – and then worry – that no further communications with the Carrier were forthcoming. Prowler pilots reported the Carrier taking the initial Cannon shots and then going dark and concern was growing that maybe – just maybe, Peacekeepers had seriously underestimated the humans' inferiority altogether and they knew that – in the long run – his eleven thousand troopers were no match at all for billions of angry natives. _Especially_ without Carrier support.

When their "General Williams" offered them an unconditional surrender, Lead Ground Commander Derack Vatri had to admire his bravery – as well as his mivonks. His troops slaughtered every sortie, destroyed every vehicle that was thrown at him – yet, he _was_ losing men and materiel at a steady rate and the destruction of their little cities had done nothing but make these savages all the more savage. To be expected perhaps but they _should_ have been worried that all their cities could be destroyed so easily and offered _less_ resistance – given that they had no real way of knowing what a Carrier could actually do. Recon patrols informed him that the local military forces were growing in size with each passing arn – and some of the tech being deployed was remarkably advanced. A forward battalion had been routed when the humans used a primitive pain-wave generator to disorient and then kill many of them. The 22nd Advanced Scout had two survivors that reported a magnetic wave weapon that disoriented troopers so badly some even fired on their own comrades. He was also informed the humans had advanced fission weapons and the pinpoint ability to deliver them which was also a great concern.

They might be less unlikely to irradiate their own territory if it meant Peacekeeper annihilation.

So far, they seemed reluctant to employ them but he didn't doubt the information had been disseminated to unnerve him.

Vatri ordered a fighting retreat, back to staging areas – just in case – and they fell back in an ordered fashion, the troopers still for the most part confident and still – at the moment - technically superior.

The humans made them pay for every metre they retreated.


	6. Step 5: Get Your Story Straight

**AGONY WAS ALL HE KNEW,** and Crichton could feel his inhibitor working and working _hard_, trying to isolate his conscious mind from the wall of artificially-induced pain that blasted it. His tormentors sifted behind the pain for memories, useful information. If they discovered his inhibitor, he was finished, he knew that. He had to make it harder for them, threw up what he could, tried to call for Harvey, tried anything…

* * *

…_**D'ARGO FOUND HIM WHERE HE EXPECTED TO FIND HIM**_ – _even if it had taken him twenty different bars to locate the right one. This one was small with a murky dark and sullen quiet. The patrons were in no hurry to be noticed. He was in a booth in the back, a rather tall glass of… something in front of him, pulse-pistol on the table._

"_I've found him." He commed the others. He heard three signals chirp at once but Chiana beat the others to it._

"_Is he all right?"_

"_So far. I can't tell. I'll let you know. I'm at a place called 'Mdbojakka's' – Four Sector."_

"_Don't let him run off again." She said and he closed the comm. Don't let - ? He wasn't going to stop him if he wanted to – that wasn't why he was here. He made his way over to the table, stood, waited until he was acknowledged. Crichton looked at him but said nothing. D'Argo then sat._

"_What are you drinking?" The Luxan asked, casual._

"_Gall." Crichton said in a monotone. D'Argo missed the reference, yet got the gist through his tone. Crichton looked into his glass then set it down._

"_You've been busy." He said, looking pointedly at his Luxan friend._

"_Not very. Just taking in the sights."_

"_A cesspool's a cesspool. What's to see?"_

"_Depends on where you look, doesn't it? We might see unseen forces at work."_

_Crichton just snorted, looked at his glass, swirled the pale red liquid inside, turned a skeptical eye on him._

"_Don't tell me you believe in fairy tales, D. Allow me to keep an illusion or two."_

_D'Argo ordered a drink when the waiter wandered by, looked over at his troubled friend._

"_No, I don't believe in fairy tales, John. But I do believe things can happen for a reason."_

_There was a sharper snort from the Human this time, loaded with derision._

"_Yeah, comfort yourself with that."_

"_You don't?" D'Argo kept his voice light, not allowing anything Crichton said to bother him. He knew from whence it all came._

"_Nothing happens to me for a coherent reason, D. It just …happens. Fate giving me the biggest finger in the Universe – just _because_. Honestly, if all of this happens for a reason, I'd really like to know what the hell I did to piss it off _this _much."_

"_Yet you go on."_

"_What's the alternative?" Crichton gulped down a huge swig, ordered another when the waiter brought D'Argo's to the table. Crichton grabbed the little guy by the arm, startling him._

"_Hey – next time you come back here? Be a girl." The guy nodded nervously and scampered off. He looked at D'Argo's drink, up at his Luxan friend._

"_Yeah… the alternatives. Death, madness, nothing. Smoking heaps of big, big fun."_

"_You make a difference – is that what you're worried about?"_

"_No, D." He replied as a waitress came to the table, brought him his drink order. She was taller than the waiter, more feminine but not by much. D'Argo smiled to himself. Crichton glanced at her, nodded and paid her then told her to bring another. She nodded and left. _

"_No – I'm not worried about making a difference. I don't. Not a damn thing I do makes one jot of difference to anyone."_

_D'Argo sipped his drink and grimaced. The condenser fluid for Lo'Lhaa's lifters tasted better._

"_Now you know that's not true, John. You've made a difference to Talyn, to Moya, to… Aer, uh - to me, to Chiana, to Koiban. You change _everyone _you encounter, whether you mean to or not."_

_Crichton nodded, unconvinced._

"_There aren't supposed to be two of us." It dropped out of nowhere._

"_What?"_

"_Crichtons. There aren't supposed to be two of us. I just… feel it – deep down, y'know? Somewhere back there, one of us was meant to die – to put an end to Kaarvok's little joke." D'Argo felt a chill in spite of himself as Crichton said it, couldn't explain it to himself. "It's not some 'predestination' bullshit, " Crichton continued "Somehow a moment was missed and something happened that shouldn't – and here I am."_

"_Do you want Chiana to yell at you again?" D'Argo asked him, remembering the last time she had heard Crichton broach that he was 'nothing more' than some 'image'._

"_Look at me, D – a rapidly-evolving monster of the Uncharteds. You didn't see me when I was away – didn't see the things I did to stay alive."_

"_We heard stories." D'Argo swirled his drink in its mug. "I know that the choices we are sometimes forced to make are never easy."_

"_But they _were _easy, D. I went hunting for wormholes and Furlow and killed a lot of people doing it." He snorted. "I seem to kill a lot of people doing _anything_."_

"_John…" D'Argo began, discomfited by his tone and the weight of the truth in his voice. "I'm sure you did it in self-defence."_

"_Not always…."_

No, nothing there, but it confused them for a moment. Find something else, find something else, distract them…

* * *

…_**HE LOOKED AT HIMSELF IN THE MIRROR, AT THE SCAR ON HIS FACE.**_

_He traced it down from his forehead, just above his eyebrow, across his cheek, down to where it ended on his jaw. To either side of it, shorter ones, like parallel tributaries on a river, crossing here and there, following the same path._

_Over where his left eye used to be, a nice, shiny new patch - black of course. Not a forever patch – just temporary. Mr. Long John Crichton, at your service. He'd thought his depth perception would have been shot all to hell but so far he'd been doing more or less all right he supposed. He missed a few things on occasion and he wasn't allowed in Pilot's Den just yet but other than that he was doing just fucking _peachy_._

Count your blessings, asshole. _He told himself. _That explosion could have just taken your stupid head clean off. Lucky for you, you've got a thick, thick skull.

"_Vain, aren't we?" came an amused feminine voice from behind him. Miriya Breannados sauntered into the room like she owned the place._

"_I have to be, now." Crichton told her, not looking away from the mirror. His voice was still a growl, thanks to his chemically-burnt throat, but it was improving. Miriya came up behind him, put her chin on his shoulder and looked into the mirror with him._

"_I like it – makes you roguish. Adds character, too."_

"_Yay. I have _character_." He said dryly. She made a face at him._

"_It could have been worse. You could be dead. You're no fun at all dead."_

"_Uh-huh."_

"'_Course, you're not all that much fun alive at the moment."_

"_What do you want? A spa day? To go skiing?"_

"_Skiing?" No translation._

"_Nevermind."_

"_Actually, some time off this station wouldn't be a bad idea. Talyn is still in drydock, completely comatose and will be for the next monen - and Moya isn't going anywhere for quite a while yet. Why don't we – you and me - take a trip?"_

"_Where?"_

_Miriya backed away, sat on the bed behind him._

"_Well, there's Adriontic. It's an ocean world – resorts, endless beaches. Wave-racing."_

_Crichton remained where he was, looking into the mirror._

"_Pass."_

"_How about Y'gras'lil? It has a 150 metra-long strip of nothing but bars, nightclubs, casinos and exotic entertainment. We could get really drunk for a few days and fool around a lot."_

"_Later."_

_Miriya sighed but ploughed on._

"_How about Flag'tin'nina? Nothing but museums and libraries. You could bore yourself into unconsciousness. Or Tlrar? It's just one big desert. You could sit in the middle of it and wallow in self-pity to your heart's content."_

_She expected a reaction but didn't really get one._

"_It's not self-pity."_

"_What would you call it? Almost every time I see you, you're staring into a mirror looking sour."_

"_Depth perception."_

"_I think… what?" He finally turned from the mirror to look directly at her._

"_Depth perception. I don't have it."_

"_You'll compensate."_

"_When? How much use am I going to be in a firefight? Flying a ship?"_

_Miriya stood._

"_You have time, John. You'll grow another eye with that kit. This stuff is routine out here. You'll be back to normal in no time – whatever that is for you." She smiled at him, actually managed to get a slight one in return. It was an improvement, even if it wasn't much of one._

"_Normal for me." He muttered. He turned back to the mirror, looked at her from there. "Miriya… I'm sorry. I guess I just don't feel… right…yet." He sent a larger smile her way. "I meant what I said about Y'gras'lil – it sounds like fun. Just not now. Can we reschedule it?"_

_Miriya saw the fatigue in his face, relented. He was only two weekens into his recovery. She came back over to him and ran a hand down his back._

"_Yeah, sure. I wasn't trying to push you."_

_He turned toward her and still had the smile. He reached out then touched her face._

"_No, I know. I'm being a bastard. I just need to get my head back on straight."_

_She sighed and returned the smile._

"_Okay. Look, get some rest and stop worrying about the eye, all right? That'll fix it." He nodded. "I'll come back tonight… good?" She asked, layering it with extra meaning._

"_Yeah, that'd be good. Thanks." Satisfied, she nodded and left. The moment she did he turned back to the mirror, his smile vanishing as if it had never been. He gazed at his reflection._

"_Normal… what _is _normal for me, anyway?"  
_

* * *

Pain seared then ceased. He heard the lumpy one mutter something, something about 'interference'. On a screen through the red-black haze clouding his vision, he could see himself murmur about normality. They seemed confused. The one called "D'g'sta" pointed to a scan of his head that showed a blip – his inhibitor? No. Keep it up, keep it up, don't let them… pain knifed him again…

* * *

…_**THEY LANDED IN THE EARLY MORNING**_ _in the hemisphere of the Imperial City on the Royal Planet and Crichton was in no hurry once down. Shiv walked gracefully and quietly by his side and let him wander with his own thoughts._

_The streets were dark and quiet, broken only by the occasional call of constabulary as they passed one another on their beats. After a time and his obvious bouts of prevaricating which got him skeptical orange eyes and sharply arched eyebrows, he finally found himself in the Great Hall, staring at the statues-not-statues of the planet's future rulers. Shiv remained at the entrance, drawing stares from guards and cleaners which she calmly ignored._

_He knew they could see him. He was the only visitor there at this hour. In the base of the platform he found their communication device, put it on. He waited, not sure if they were asleep or not. Almost immediately Katralla spoke to him._

"_You have looked better," she said with a gentle reproach in her voice._

"_Indeed." Tyno agreed._

"_Thanks." He looked at Tyno. "You two all right? They keeping the birds off? You look duly polished."_

"_They take exceptional care of us, Crichton." Tyno answered. "You realize you should not be here. Your fame, such as it is, precedes you." _

_Tyno sounded like he found 'fame' a rather dubious word to use._

"_Yeah, well, I don't think my being here will be a problem. I'm not staying long."_

"_What is the matter that would bring you back?" Katralla asked._

_Crichton started to pace._

"_I know you've doubtless heard the stories. People have probably wondered why and how there should be a 'Crichton' here and one cruising around in the Uncharteds, blowin' stuff up."_

"_It is a mostly moot point." Tyno said. "Many think it is merely an imposter trying to claim notoriety using your name." Crichton almost laughed at that. That had been the story he'd been passing off. "Some do question us, yes. We have denied it of course, but there are growing factions who see me as a fraud. It is of a concern to us."_

"_I figured. It's why I'm here. Look, I wanted you to know the truth, okay? You need to know what's happened since the last time."_

"_What _has _happened to you, John?" Katralla seemed concerned. "Your eye, your demeanour – if half the stories we have heard are true…"_

"_I know, I know," He cut her off. "Let me just get this out and I'll leave." He continued to pace around them as he spoke, telling them of Rovhu and Kaarvok and Crichton being twinned. _

"_An astonishing tale," Tyno commented. "You believe that you are this copy?"_

"_To listen to Kaarvok, we're _both _copies. That's crap." Crichton stopped pacing. "Crichton took a wormhole back to his native planet over a cycle ago. He's not responsible for anything I've done since. I use his name, because… well… I have to, I need the legend as it were, to do what I have to - I think you can understand that."_

"_I can," Tyno agreed, and Katralla agreed with him. "John Crichton is an honourable man." He added pointedly._

"_Yeah… there's the rub. Katralla, I want you to tell your people, the ones who threaten you, what I just told you. Neither you nor the kid should suffer because of me, because of the name. It is a copy frelling things up. The real Crichton is the same as he was. You don't have to be ashamed of it – if you ever tell the kid."_

_Katralla sighed._

"_John… only those who have a certain level of clearance can come to us at any time and speak to us as you're doing. The public have scheduled times. You did not notice but you must pass through a genetic scanner to do it as you have done. You are on the list as the father of my child. If you stand here at this time, you _are _John Crichton."_

"_Yeah, I have his DNA. Kaarvok the Crazy said we were identical, as I told you. But _he's _the father, Katralla, not me. This is _my _first time on this planet. I just happen to have his memories." He seemed to falter as Katralla watched him pull the headset off and tossed it. "I just wanted you to know the truth, just didn't want either you or the kid to be ashamed of the genes."_

_He turned and stalked away and Katralla knew better than to try and call after him. Connected through the base they stood on, she and Tyno shared their discomfort._

"_Katralla… do you think John Crichton an honourable man?" Tyno asked, watching the "infamous" man walk away._

"_Yes, my love. And I will make it a point to tell my child so. About both of them."_

_Crichton made his way back to the pod without incident. Shiv followed behind him, silent all the way. He stopped in the hatchway and sighed._

"_You are finished?" She asked, waiting._

"_Yeah." He led the way in and closed the hatch._

"_I should inform you that we have missed the lead run of that Peacekeeper supply convoy you wished to loot." Shiv sat then powered up the pod. Crichton was looking through the cockpit blister at the magnificent city before them._

"_There'll be another along." She nodded as she lifted them off._

"_May I ask," she ventured after a moment or two, "What you were trying to accomplish here?"_

_He watched the planet drop below them._

"_I told you about Crichton and Katralla." She nodded. He had. "Just protecting his name where it matters. As usual. The kid needs to know someday that she doesn't have a monster for a father."_

_Shiv nodded and kept her own thoughts about this subject to herself._

"_We've got work to do." His voice hardened and he looked vaguely disgusted with himself. "The next time I blow a raid on sentimental dren, hit me."_

"_As you wish".  
_

* * *

"Curious," someone said, he didn't know if it had been a language or a feeling or just his shredded imagination. He thought he heard Scorpius' voice, wanted to laugh or vomit or spit or something that didn't involve agony. He would have paid real money if he could have persuaded them to kill him just then…

* * *

…_**THE NIGHT WAS CLEAR AND CHILLY,**_ _not at all unpleasant, the sky stuffed with stars. He stopped counting around a thousand and was nowhere near done. Just on the horizon a vibrant red nebula glowed. The great silver crescent of the large moon called _"Irriennos" _was starting to rise to the west. The small orange one called _"Vettitarkos" _was almost about to set. A meteor suddenly flared and vanished. He was sitting in the tall grass with a boulder as a backrest, just trying to be content, to – as his paternal grandmother once called his obsessive stargazing - "justify their light's journey"._

_In the distance, the party-goers yet laughed and hooted, Ritak the loudest - as usual - the fragrant smoke of the _lhuka_-wood fires drifting past. The bone in his leg was healed but a dull ache still accompanied every step. This world – _Ukase Nha_, by name, meaning "The Pleasant Land" – was exactly that. He could just make out, in the encroaching light of the big moon, the black and ugly scar burnt across the fields, skeletal houses, new gravestones – thanks to pirate band that had also been hunting for Furlow. _

Wāko Navar_, they were called and he'd happily helped kill them. Never before had he encountered any group that so reveled in outrage and horror. He felt the guilt bite him because he knew _he'd _led them here, to one of Furlow's hiding places, even though he knew she'd picked this place because it was so isolated – and rich – and not well-defended, its people friendly and vulnerable. He could see her cold-bloodedly calculating the distraction – which had been precisely what she'd hoped. She'd managed to escape him again and he'd no choice but to stay and help these people._

_That had been two weekens ago and the fight had been vicious and bloody and he'd lost people he'd come to like. He looked back to the revelers, still celebrating the defeat of the pirates. The folks of Ukase Nha loved to celebrate. They had a least five holidays a month – or what passed for a month here – and apparently were always looking for another to add._

_He could see her vibrant silver-gold hair swirl and shimmer in the light of the fire, happily twirling from arm-to-arm with a broad smile on her face. He admired her strength, felt an immense respect for that young lady. What she'd done, endured… he'd blown those …men… to hell and gone but it didn't balance the scales._

_It never did._

_At some point, she must have noticed him missing because finally she'd been spun away and sat laughing and spent of dancing and begun to look about. _

This was an adequate substitute, _he told himself_. I can never go home, but this place would do very, very nicely.

_Which figured. He'd ruined it. Tainted it. Brought devils to this Eden and allowed them to outrage the native angels. That was on him, a stain forever on his soul. He knew somehow, that everywhere he would go from this day until his last, he would infect those places with his shadows. Kaarvok's Creature. Kha'jhav, the Cold Shadow. It made sense now._

_One of those native angels, concerned by his absence, came looking for him. She was beautiful and young and her compassion and grace were great but her large startling eyes were haunted, welts and bruises on her face only now starting to fade. He was as responsible, he told himself, for those as much as anyone. More perhaps._

"_Asiya," he acknowledged her as she perched on the boulder behind his head._

"_John, you are missed," her gentle voice floated down from above._

"_Don't really believe that, anymore." _Oh, for Christ's sake. Dumbass.

"_I meant by _us_." Amused, a little sad._

"_Sorry. Just justifying."_

"_What?" He explained his grandmother's saying. "She was a wise female."_

"_I've gotten very lucky in that department."_

_A tentative hand dropped to his head, stroked his unruly hair, longer now._

"_You are leaving. I can feel this."_

"_Yeah. This was my fault, Asi. Mine. What happened to Bevel and Rhon, to Akko. To you. None of this would have happened if I'd just have left well enough alone."_

"_How could that have been your fault? That mechanic trapped us in there, not you." He shook his head under her caressing hand. _She _was trying to comfort _him_, he knew and that only made him feel worse._

"_All I had to do was pull the damn trigger and I could have got you all out. I _should _have shot the duplicitous bitch. I don't know why I didn't. I honestly…don't."_

"_You will blame yourself anyway, John. What they did, to …me, to them – that was not you. That door was five motras thick. Even if you had stopped her then and there, you alone could not have pulled it open in time to prevent anything."_

"_Still my fault. I have to feel it, Asi. I can't help it. Just leave me to it."_

"_No one blames you but yourself. I do not blame you. I will heal."_

"_It should help, Asi. But it doesn't. I own this. It was my fault."_

One thousand and one…

_She sighed and the hand went away, was held out in invitation._

"_Come. Back to the fires. I have waited to dance with you all night."_

_He looked up at her, disbelief in his eyes._

"_How are you so damned strong? So… good?" _

…one thousand and two…

"_I am not. But I am surrounded by compassion and strength. That helps. Can we not offer it to you?"_

_Crichton pulled himself to his feet to stand next to her. How _did _he get blessed by knowing so many exceptional women? Why did he never bring them anything but grief?_

… and none of them home.

"_Like your shaman said when I first arrived – I _am _a creature, Asi, a thing of darkness. 'I bring only pain, I leave only sorrow behind me.' That's what she said – she was perfectly right. I _have _to leave or more will come here."_

"_Peacekeepers?" She accepted he would never allow himself any comfort on this matter. You could not tell a stone to stop being stony._

"_Bounty hunters, more pirates – who knows? I stay – they _will _come. Like the rising of that moon."_

_She nodded knowing she could not dissuade him. Moss on that stone did not change its hardness._

"_Where are you going?" she asked, all eyes and unasked questions. She was very indeed young and he felt very old._

"_I don't know yet." He looked back up at the endless expanse of stars, shook his head. "Nowhere to go, I guess."_

"_Nonsense," she said, taking and squeezing his hand. "You can always go home."_

_To his eternal bewilderment, his unbidden laugh at that made her hug him hard and cry._

_She'd not cried the whole time, and _that _set her off._

_Crichton vowed, there and then, to keep his shadows to himself.  
_

* * *

…those shadows, like faithful hounds, bring darkness and he welcomes it; if it is death, he welcomes it…

The power suddenly dies and two tormentors curse.


	7. Step 6: Know Where You Stand

**AERYN SUPPOSED SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN GRATEFUL.**

The room they deposited her in had a portal and she could see the Earth below her. She sat heavily, mind churning, her back against the wall, head back and closed her eyes and sighed. She felt tired and defeated and powerless.

It had all gone to Hezmana with an astonishing speed.

All of this, she ruminated with a rueful wryness, _should_ have been just another day, that one scrabble after another, running, fighting. She remembered the desperation, the fear, the anxiety and stresses but damn it all, she felt _alive_ then, living the challenge, every victory exhilarating because they _mattered_, every moment of intimacy and pleasure and passion all the sweeter because they had been earned so dearly.

Earth had been… easy. Comfortable. Infuriating. Soft.

The truth? She'd wanted it because he'd wanted it.

It wasn't home and never would be. That was the truth too. Unpleasant but the truth. It was too easy down there to ignore certain truths, too easy to get too comfortable. Too easy to forget what she was and where she'd come from – what had _he_ said? They'd led the Peacekeepers here. Yes, she had to agree with him. They had, perhaps not directly but they had. If they had not come to Earth, it would be safe and none of this would be happening.

_No,_ she thought sardonically, _I'd have two Crichtons to deal with, which I can see as being magnitudes worse._

Aeryn sighed. No. That would have been a pleasure in comparison to what she had now.

_I never should have…_

There was thump before her and a bright light flared against her eyelids. She opened her eyes but all was a blinding white, utterly featureless. She rubbed them but the white stayed a few more microts then faded to reveal the sharp black-steel confines of the bridge of a Command Carrier but it was no Carrier she'd even seen before. Around her Peacekeepers walked and worked and none saw her or acknowledged her if they did.

"_What the frell…?"_ she muttered.

"Wormholes." A cold voice said from behind her and she wheeled to see a face she'd not seen in twenty cycles – Relvani Hakke, her first battle instructor. Hakke looked as she'd always done, all sharp angles, severity and icy edges – and _hollow eyes_.

She recognized her for what she actually was - John had spoken of her kind in whispers, as if louder would attract their attention.

Not Hakke. Not even close.

Why _here_, why _her_, why _now_?

"You're an Ancient," she told her to her concurring nod.

"I am an instrument of the Caretaker Cabal – you have met one before and called him… 'Jack'. I am not the Monitor. That vector is otherwise engaged."

She nodded. There was chill running up her spine and she tried to quell it.

"We ran, as you told us." She informed her. "We tried to keep it safe and I know things are bad now, but..."

The Carrier suddenly rumbled, then shuddered. Orange light flared and the main screen forward blasted it intensely across the Deck. "Hakke" pointed to the screen.

"You were not told to run. Nowhere is ever safe."

A voice she recognized boomed across Command.

"_You hound me, harass me – kill my… friends? This is on _your _heads. You just couldn't leave well enough alone."_

The Carrier suddenly heeled over and she instinctively reached out to catch herself, found a bulkhead. Around her shouts and exclamations rose in volume.

"_Massive gravity well directly ahead!"_

"All engines _full reverse_!"

"Incoming gravity wave – rated _1-9-9 Velta_!"

There was an anticipatory silence that lasted all of 20 microts when the wave hit and the Carrier groaned and bucked and rolled. Aeryn was thrown to the floor, along with everyone else not seated. When the ship righted itself, two hundred microts later, power and lighting restored, feet scrambled and reports started flying across the deck.

"Captain! The Scarran fleet! It's… _gone_!"

"Carrier _Relentless_ has been destroyed!"

"_Get us out of here!_"

"Engines full reverse – no effect! We are beginning to be… pulled in!"

"Carrier _Indomitable_ destroyed!"

"Carrier _Avenger's Coil_ heavily damaged… no - Carrier destroyed! _Our fleet's being annihilated!_"

"Gravity has increased 300 percent!" a tech shouted over the din of grinding metal and straining, screaming engines.

"'_I am become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds'._ _You made me into this, you forced this. This is the way your war ends." _ A frighteningly calm and hollow-voiced John Crichton said over the comms. "_The way your worlds end and the way your species – Sebacean and Scarran – becomes extinct. Good riddance."_

On the monitor, she saw Moya torn apart by a hole of… darkness out there, darker than the very dark of space itself, blacker than black, deeper than any shadow spawned in a myriad cold hells - and then, all around her, both the Carrier and the people on board began to scream, and then _come apart_. She watched in horror as the Carrier vanished around her, and she was left floating – unharmed – in space, the vista which then opened up to reveal that massive black darkness growing and destroying. At her feet, an entire planet began to break apart, even its parent star, far away, began to 'lean' in the direction of the weapon, great tendrils of flame being pulled from it across the distances. The black of that hole seemed to embody nothingness itself, more than nothing. The maw of the utter void. She almost screamed at the primal fear that darkness evoked, clamped her hands over her mouth to stifle it.

With no warning she stood on what appeared to be a grey ice floe.

All was quiet.

She sucked in a shuddering breath, tried to get a hold of herself. She felt cold but there was no real heat or cold to speak of here.

John had told her that the Displacement Engine he and Jack had built had not really been a weapon, _per se_, merely an improvised one in their crisis. As powerful as that had been, there were _real _weapons he could build, he told her in tones of hushed horror; weapons so unbelievably destructive they could unravel the very fabric of space and time itself.

The other Crichton, the pirate… he almost said as much, had been trying to tell them all along, she grasped with a sudden flash, that if Earth and all on it had to be sacrificed to keep those potentialities from Scorpius or the Scarrans, he'd let it happen – _he_ understood the burden of the Ancients, understood why they reacted so coldly and with such finality. She'd just seen Nothingness as a _real thing_, as hard as it was to grasp fully. That was power beyond might, beyond anything that _could_ be called 'power'.

To control it made one a god. No ambiguity, no hyperbole. A _god_.

John couldn't be so blind. He _had_ to know it, hadn't he said as much...?

"_They're the _Fists of God_. _Nothing _is safe from these weapons, Aeryn."_ He'd told her with absolute conviction. "_Nothing_."

So why _didn't_ he _close_ the frelling wormhole when he'd actually had the chance? Why had he lied about the drive in Australia? About his book? What was he trying to accomplish now? Was he tempted? Was it godhood he was after? Had she lost him to megalomania?

Could she blame him?

Beside her, serene, 'Hakke' watched her.

"I understand…" she began but Hakke shook her head.

"You do not."

There was another blinding shock of white and a feeling of wrenching, twisting nausea, then a scene faded into view.

Moya now, intact, she now on Command. Smoke billowed, sparks flew. In the corridor outside, a fire blazed. In the centre of Command was an apparatus she'd never seen, flashing with power. John stood wrapped in it, blood on his face. Chiana, eyes white and opaque, gripped the Navigation console tightly, a look of frightened determination on her face. Aeryn realized that Chiana was _blind_.

With shock, she saw Rygel crumpled in the corner, quite blatantly dead, and a three-eyed old woman crumpled in the corridor, dead or unconscious she couldn't determine. Crichton was stony-faced in the contraption. On his back was strapped D'Argo's Qualta Blade. On the viewscreen, Carriers and Dreadnoughts were closing on them, on each other. Fighters of both sides darted and exploded all around them. John looked utterly exhausted, and in his eyes she could see… madness, fury, hopelessness, a rage with no depth, too deep for depth.

"_It's over_, Chiana!" He shouted over the noise of Moya screaming all around them. "The war's _over_!"

Outside a small spiral of blue light began to grow and turn an angry red-orange and Aeryn knew what it was – and the Ancient showed her the same edge of destruction and another John Crichton ushering in the end of everything.

Again, the Ancient brought her back to the calm ice floe.

"You could step in – stop this Carrier and then we close the…?" she'd tried, and a shake of the head.

"None of this has happened." Hakke told her enigmatically, to her mounting frustration.

"_This is what you want. This is what _you _want." _She heard her own voice say from behind her. She turned. She sat on a bed in her own quarters in Moya, heavily _pregnant_.

John got angry then. He had blood on his face.

"_No, Aeryn, it is not what I want! It's just that fate keeps blocking all the exits. And no matter what I do, I just keep circling closer to the flame."_

"_Then pull back. This war is not your responsibility."_ She told him again. He'd clutched her swollen belly and looked at her painfully.

"_You and the baby are my responsibility. And how am I supposed to protect you from the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans and the Tregans and the lions and tigers and bears?" _He pulled out Wynona. "_With this? This gun? No gun is big enough."_

She thought furiously – especially about the pregnancy but had no real time to contemplate it. The scene changed. Abruptly with no transition.

"_This is what you want?" _A woman's voice said but it was not hers. She recognized the red-haired Miriya.

"It's what _they_ want," John said, voice empty, desolate and utterly cold. This one had one eye this time. There was blood spatter on his face, on his clothes. "It's why they killed D'Argo and Chi, and Rygel and… Aeryn." He looked at the blood on his hands. _Her blood? _ His face was as grim as she'd ever seen it.

"It's why they'll kill every last person I care about, why they'll destroy Earth and a hundred others – for _nothing_. For power? Is that _all_?"

He'd turned to the device she'd seen previously, walk toward it with a grim and intent purpose.

"_I'll_ show them _power._", he'd muttered and began the apocalypse all over again.

"Stop!" she yelled, becoming shell-shocked by the recurrence of it, by the despair and endless horror it engendered. "What do you _want?!_"

"Comprehension." It told her, infuriatingly calm.

Many more times she was forced to watch a Crichton unleash interstellar destruction and eventually she stopped reacting and started paying attention to details. 'Hakke' showed her the same scene with many permutations.

Something… was missing from the majority of the permutations. She looked at the Ancient, finally making the connection. Hakke gazed back at her with a machine's hollow eyes.

"Yes." 'she' confirmed. "The price of godhood."

"I'm …never there." She felt a creeping horror. "_No." _She whispered to herself, suddenly remembering.

"_Let 'em all burn." His voice is razor-edged steel, empty and soulless. In his heart, he is alone – his centre is gone, no guide, now lost forever. "They wanted slaughter? I'll show them slaughter."_

"I can't be that important." Around her ships and their crews were being inescapably crushed. "Did I make the wrong decision?" Aeryn asked, that unwanted fear, that hateful uncertainty in the back of her mind, but Hakke simply said,

"There are no right or wrong decisions. There are only choices and consequences." Around her many great black maws opened silently and froze. Stars and worlds and billions were frozen as they were consumed, and the Ancient contemplated the bewildered woman. Her eyes reflected the devastation.

"_These _will be all consequences and choices."

"But _I _didn't choose any of those. I wouldn't have." She shook her raven head forcefully, hair dancing around her face.

"You did not, but you _did_ choose."

Hakke wiped the space around them clean, leaving only a faintly-humming grey before them.

"Witness. Choices are being made, and I may be forced to contemplate... finality." She nodded at the greyness. She looked, to see a _Veddik_-class Vigilante, with a large skull-and-crossbones painted on its flank smoothly slicing through the starry night. She knew it well, by now. Before it Moya hung, waiting. Bracing her, a larger Talyn hung and it warmed her again to see him.

"Is this an alternative, or is it to come?" Aeryn asked her.

"Perhaps," was all 'Hakke' maddeningly said.

She was on Moya abruptly, there in 'full color and three-dee' as John would have said, looking at the backs of the heads of Chiana, D'Argo, Rygel and Evigan Koiban. Stark was there, too, and she saw his head jerk, and he looked around as if he sensed her arrival.

On the screen before them, the Vigilante approached, and it changed to reveal...

"Miriya," D'Argo. "Where's Crichton?"

"_He's gone_," Miriya told him, sounding both angry and resigned. "_Down the wormhole."_

"Frell, no!" D'Argo ejaculated in sudden horror and fury. "He can't be serious!"

"_He's serious."_ Miriya looked tired then, as if she'd been holding herself tightly and then letting go. "_The last thing he said was that you and Moya and Talyn were to _run _as far and as fast as you can. We're only stopping to tell you and then we're getting as frelling far as possible from this space as fast as _we _can."_

"He means it." D'Argo said, sagging at the console, despair in his voice. "I never thought he'd even contemplate it, let alone _do_ it." He looked at Chiana. "We failed him."

"_I don't think he would have done it, either. I'm sorry. They left him no choices." _Miriya added, shaking her head. "_But you didn't fail him, any of you. Whatever he was… it's gone." _Miriya appeared saddened by the idea but she put it aside. "_They killed whatever he had left. He no longer cares." _For a moment, the woman on the screen looked directly at Aeryn, violet eyes sharp and knowing. She sighed. "_Do what he says. Save what you can. He's not coming back. The war will soon be everywhere."_

The screen switched back to the image of the Vigilante, which turned gracefully and accelerated away at top speed. It vanished quickly.

"D'Argo?" Chiana asked.

"I don't know, Chiana. If he does what he said… we may have no choice. This might be our only chance."

"_Run!"_ Stark suddenly cried, full-to-bursting with horror and panic, clutching his head and staggering back. "I see _death_! _Only_ death! Death for all! _Death, death_, _death!_"

He wheeled suddenly to point straight at Aeryn and raved,

"_Your_ fault! Your _fault_, all _you_ - _all_ you! You, you, you! _Your fault_!"

Her friends had turned as Stark had yelled at her and looked as if they were seeing her for the first time, but before they could say anything, 'Hakke' whisked her away.

"_My_ fault?" Aeryn felt stunned. "How is it _my_ fault?"

'Hakke' stared at her, saying nothing. She thought furiously, went over all she'd seen and the one key factor in all suddenly struck her – _yes_. Yes, _her_ fault but not. She did not choose it, would never have chosen it.

But she _did_ choose.

"You are the key," the Ancient said, as if it were the one great secret of the universe. "You are the fulcrum of events. Your name may usher in the end of all there is."

"What can I do?" She'd asked bewildered but the answer came as if it were obvious, when it hadn't been at all.

"Choose. This is all I can give you. You have no more time."

"I don't understand what you mean!" She'd cried, whirling on the Ancient's projection, only to trip over the small table in the centre of the room. She caught herself and cursed, glared into Earthshine. She bowed her head and breathed and thought and despaired. It felt like a long time before she looked up.

"_I am reminded at this point," _she heard her own voice echo through the room faintly, or thought she did, "_Of a word you actually brought to this ship._ Hope."

"_I would be lost without you."_ The answer came, as faintly.

"_Then you'll never be lost…" _The echo died away as it had come. Aeryn felt her resolve harden.

The lights suddenly cut out but it didn't surprise her.

Her choices had not changed, she realized, not really. Making one or making none had the same consequences, depending on just who made them. 'Decisions and consequences', "Hakke" had said. Choose and live with it.

Her eyes adjusted to the Earthshine as the now-sole light source and she looked at her reflection in the portal.

"I understand now," she told it.

Without hesitation Aeryn turned and strode into the dark.


	8. Step 7: Watch Those Variables

**IRIYA NERRIMANDI TOOK STOCK OF HER NEW HOME.**

Akanke was gone, she knew that with a complete certainty, yet… she remained. Ghosts of memories, she could feel knowledge and emotions and experiences she knew were not hers filter through her own consciousness, of a world thought beautiful and worth preserving and as a Subvertor knew that they would be nothing but useful, should she ever need to pretend to be the formidable woman whose body she now occupied.

That thought suddenly stopped her.

Under what circumstances _would _she ever need to pretend to be the woman whom she now occupied? Upon her return to the Influence…

…she'd be an _alien_.

_That_ thought shut her down for almost a full hundred microts.

Her mind felt the same but she had to wonder how long it would last – her thoughts would be forced through the synapses and neurons of an alien mind – would they be altered to fit or could she ply them to accept her patterns? What _would _she learn from this remarkable human, so much like her own kind; the Disruptors, Subvertors, the Propagandizers, the Mythologizers who seeded primitive worlds with religions to make them more accepting of Peacekeepers, the Assassins and Political Monitors who could turn whole worlds with a single shot or one exact word at the precise moment?

_Her_ own kind?

She was _Human_ now.

If she could have laughed, she would have – she was now contaminated beyond all regulations, even past the dispensations granted by her profession. In granting her new life, Stark and Akanke had condemned her, trapped her between worlds. Only her thoughts were her own now, the only part of her Sebacean bias' and outlooks and even those would doubtless become shaded by the ghost of Jocasta Akanke's energy still pulsing through her brain.

What could she – what _would_ she be now? Even if the pirates could get off this Carrier, she had nowhere to go.

No. She was not about to simply capitulate to fate. She was a shaper of events, not their pawn.

Two basic possibilities presented themselves – to pretend to be a Sebacean if or when she returned to her own space, or to pretend to be a Human down among the billions on Crichton's homeworld and frankly, the latter option was certainly the easiest.

There were definite possibilities to such a role, to be the woman who had given her a chance, their lives not so dissimilar. It would not be so difficult a thing to step into Akanke's interrupted life.

Granted, it had been an isolated and lonely life and grudgingly she admitted to herself that they had shared that as well. Iriya knew she'd be lying to herself if she pretended she hadn't actually enjoyed _certain_ portions of her time with Crichton. She knew full well why Peacekeeper Command discouraged any long-term emotional attachment or exclusive partner recreation – that led to pair bonding and could seriously disrupt unit cohesion, upset plans or what they saw as "necessity" - why it was constantly derided as a "weakness".

Perhaps not too surprisingly, Akanke's government seemed to think the same for her and her ilk.

Looked at honestly, in many ways, they _were_ right – she had done and not done things – were she completely on track doing her job and duty – simply because she found that after a while she had no real desire to subject Crichton to anything his own native skill could not deter nor anything that – being _completely _honest - lessened his opinion of her – well, fine, Miriya, as it were, but it hadn't been Miriya in the forefront of their shared consciousness _every_ recreation, after all, truth to be told. There was certainly something to be said in having a sexual partner that actually _cared_ that their partner enjoyed the act.

Iriya may have been an expert liar but she never lied to herself. Whatever had been said about him - alien, criminal, enemy – she had very few regrets having been in his company – being honest with herself.

She wasn't Miriya. Not remotely. Miriya liked John Crichton – the pirate – quite a bit, but _she_ had that freedom. Iriya, no matter what she'd been exposed to, even pleasurable – was just not cut from that cloth.

Iriya did not "like" Crichton. She respected him. It had been grudging at first but once understanding his mettle, she'd had no choice _but_ to respect him. His intelligence and ruthlessness was something to _be_ admired, in her opinion. He had known that Miriya was not what she appeared to be. _How long_ he had known that she did not know – but she was certain he knew it early on. Yet he allowed her to go on – even after she put him in harm's way.

He was not her "friend", though - Subvertors and Disruptors had no friends, could not afford them - but he was – oddly - an enemy she _valued_, one she even enjoyed having, in a few senses of that word, if that met any kind of logic.

She knew the Scarrans had to be stopped - that was in no dispute. She also knew that Scorpius, no matter what he told High Command, was not the one to do it. He hated them, yes, no doubt, but he had no love for Sebaceans either and certainly had no qualms in sacrificing them for his own purposes.

_His_ loyalties went no further than his own goals.

She had a suspicion, with no real evidence to support it but a suspicion nonetheless, that if the Scarrans were to be defeated – as ridiculous as it sounded – John Crichton would have a very decisive hand in it. It made no sense but something told her it was a true as anything she currently knew.

As to _her_ loyalties… she'd seen too much and she now understood exactly what High Command meant by "contamination".

Iriya found she wanted something else. She could finally admit that to herself. Miriya had been, _damn her,_ right.

If there had been one thing Crichton could have been said to have taught her it was that she had – and could make - her _own_ choices, to benefit _herself,_ to live _for_ herself, to _be_ something else, if she desired. Miriya had been right about that.

Iriya Nerrimandi was undeniably a new woman now and she had the body to prove it. As she was discovering, the mind she now occupied had extensive and detailed memory-ghosts of the life it had lived and directed.

So now had _she_.


	9. Step 8: Choose Your Allies Wisely

**IT WAS NO TROUBLE AT ALL** for Aeryn to crank her door open and slip into in the abyssal black that filled the Carrier with a suddenness that made people around her cry out. She tucked herself in an alcove and waited for her eyes to adjust; could, after a while just barely see the navigational strips on the floors and walls, written directions above them. It helped and fortunately she knew where she was going. She managed a locker and found a pulse pistol and infra-occulars – basically night-vision devices, and put them on. They worked for a few moments, then faded to a just-barely. It was enough to get her going, allow her to avoid those she could now see – more or less - groping in the dark, maneuver through the voices calling and trying to direct traffic and repairs. She saw a few troopers moving with better assurance, a few techs the same and knew she wasn't the only one who'd found shielded lockers. She stuffed another pair into a pocket. It had been a safe assumption to make – even John had talked about exotic energies in a wormhole that ships would someday need protection from – why his module never seemed affected was still a mystery, although the common assumption was that the Ancients themselves had protected it somehow. It made sense a tech carrier would have pointed compartmentalized shielding on the ship – just in case.

No one tried to stop her. It would have been a waste of time when there were much larger concerns. One trooper who'd pondered it would later curse himself quite roundly considering all that had happened because he hadn't, but he couldn't be blamed for not being prescient. He'd had more pressing concerns at the time.

Aeryn had to double back once or twice, this not being a standard carrier – one of the few pure research Carriers, a grand total of only twenty-five allocated to the Tech Divisions. "SS duty", her fellow soldiers called them, back in her day. "Soft Shifts." It was not considered a boon to be assigned to one dealing with 'soft techs'. Aeryn smirked at that. She knew too well just how dangerous a "soft" Tech could be.

It took her almost two-thirds of an arn to get to the section she sought. She pulled the door open with the emergency manual crank, and slid silently in. This room had only three figures in it – two, with obviously better eyesight than would have been expected, scurried about trying to find some power – the third hung limply from their accursed machine. She heard one curse that the subject "_may have died precipitously and ruined the results_" and Aeryn felt liquid fury go through her.

She had no mercy for torturers and even less for those who enjoyed it, didn't balk, or even give it a first thought. She killed Blio with a single shot, sending the misshapen creature squalling and flopping into a rack of instruments, where it moaned and scrabbled with a gurgling choking gargle that went on for too long before it hacked once and went silent.

Her pistol, it turned out, only had one real shot in it as she tracked for the second and she discarded it with a silent curse.

D'g'sta was quicker than its companion, far more nimble and had much better vision. With a guttural snarl, it charged at her and she ducked under its long arms to plant a solid kick into its midsection, which only caused D'g'sta to stagger, fall to one knee. Now an equal height she went in and landed a hard punch that rocked the creature then pulled back for another, but D'g'sta caught her by the arm and flung her away with a rather astonishing strength. Aeryn ploughed through a stack of instruments, used her momentum to flip herself over and back onto her feet, sputtering to get air back in and to clear the flecks of light in her vision.

That creature was _strong_. It had also damn-near popped her arm from its socket, her arm pulsing with pain from shoulder to elbow. She felt it to make sure it hadn't popped as she moved, listening to D'g'sta hiss and spit in the darkness.

Aeryn quickly readjusted her infras just as D'g'sta followed up with a piece of computer component that she ducked with a precision she'd forgotten she'd had – then dodging more projectiles with an equal accuracy as she maneuvered closer, all until D'g'sta exhausted its store.

"I _am_ the stronger," it hissed at her, moving with an easy assurance opposite. Aeryn felt her heart speed up and her muscles tense. "Sad, _sorry_ Sebaceans, so pliable, so _easy_ to harm."

Aeryn stayed silent. An enemy who talked instead of fought knew it had already lost. This was not one of John's asinine sim-vids where combatants traded barbs and jibes forever. This was _life and death _and Aeryn meant to _kill_ the tormentor before her. She didn't discount that the creature was physically stronger than she, she knew how to compensate for it.

She was a Special Commando, one forever, and the "Special" meant that Aeryn Sun had forgotten more ways to kill, maim or cripple an opponent than the thing before her could imagine in all its pain-inducing fantasies.

Psychologically, her silence would also serve to further aggravate her foe and disrupt its concentration. It appeared to have some personal defence skill but there was a substantial difference when it came to self-defence and actual _combat_ training and she knew her silence was working when D'g'sta continued,

"_You_ believe you are _skill_ed," It snarled at her. "But your endurance _is_ limited. I will pre_vail_, you cannot _pre_vent it."

Aeryn had managed another few steps and D'g'sta saw it – with a grating rumble, it charged and Aeryn waited.

The long corded arm with a fist the size of her head shushed past her as she ducked, and she drove the stiffened fingers of one hand into D'g'sta's torso, the fingers of the other into its throat, felt them impact and then skid off a hard bony plate beneath. She dodged nimbly and slid to her left as the other arm came whistling back and an uppercut sent D'g'sta dodging backward. It puffed, put a table between itself and she. Aeryn watched it, moved to the other side of the table, wary for tricks. It took her only a microt to realize her mistake, and she was already leaping back when D'g'sta kicked the table into her midsection, interrupting her backward motion and knocking her back and to the floor with a grunt. She barely managed to block the fist that followed, deflected its momentum and turned a blow that would have broken her jaw into a glancing blow that still rattled her, felt sharp pain and blood began to ooze from her nose. She kicked the torturer solidly where the Sebacean groin would be and it staggered back with a hiss. Aeryn scrambled to her feet, eyes out of focus and head ringing.

D'g'sta came back with an unexpected swiftness and grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms with enormous power. It began to squeeze and she suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"Female, I will harm _you_ with out_rage_, is that not your word?" It hissed in her ear. "I will ruin you for _future_ happiness and give over that you _be_ allowed to live, meat _for_ my pain and my _machine_."

Aeryn gasped as it squeezed harder, stomped onto its foot and drove her head back into its face. It staggered, grunted, but loosened its grip only slightly. With a snarl, it squeezed harder and Aeryn wheezed and went limp. It shook her once then dropped her hard to the floor.

She didn't move.

It backed off, reached for a strut on the pain machine, pulled a short rod off it and broke the end into a jagged point. It would carve some slave sigils into her flesh, scratch her up, disfigure her for the affront of forcing him to react physically. The man hanging there coughed weakly and it sneered at him in the dark. It went back to the prone female, flipped her over…

...Aeryn came violently to life, slamming a computer tablet into the side of D'g'sta's head, rolling away as the jagged metal in its hand stabbed down in reflex. It fell away, crashing into a cart of instruments, going down with a grunt and clatter. Aeryn climbed to her feet, coughed, her chest burning, pain lancing through her side, hoping she didn't have a cracked rib or two. She shook her head and D'g'sta came from the dark to connect with a heavy fist that blasted red sparks across her eyelids, hurled her to fall into the pain machine, nearly unconscious.

As she hit, she inadvertently pulled hoses off the thing, which sprayed coolant into the room in a heavy cloud of cold. She stayed on her feet only through sheer training, dimly heard D'g'sta stomping toward her. On instinct, she thrust her head into the foggy cold, snapping herself awake. A glint in the pain merchant's hand warned her and she shoved herself to the side and D'g'sta drove his makeshift dagger into the machine's structure instead.

Aeryn chopped its wrist hard, was rewarded with a clang of metal dropping from its hand. She grabbed the weapon as D'g'sta stumbled back, growling in pain.

By this time, Aeryn had had more than enough of this creature.

A feint at its head threw it off-balance and she slid under it to tangle in its feet, brought it crashing past her to fall and skid with a squeal. She wasted no motion, pounced on D'g'sta - and without hesitation and an anger-slicked precision drove the jagged metal into the creature's brainstem with a blow so hard she heard the tip of it clang on the floor on the other side.

Aeryn stepped away panting, wiped her face with the back of her hand, spat. She leaned against the pain machine, rubbed her no-doubt-bruised ribs.

"Just… stay… the frell _down_… this time..!"

She felt her blood up, not having had fought like that in a long time, felt old instincts flaring, liked the feeling immensely, despite the pain. She found a small med-pack in the pile of equipment D'g'sta had thrown her into, slapped healing gel on her face and gulped down a pain reliever.

It was with purpose she went to Crichton. Little power meant she had to pry the clamps and clasps from him and she tore them free with a renewed vigor, a pleasurable feeling of strength in her hands - the electrodes and connections on his head she took extra care with, as he had bled heavily from his nose and she'd rather preferred to not damage him any further. He had a dark welt on his temple that seemed to cover the right side of his head, disappear under his hair, but she couldn't tell what it was exactly since her occulars couldn't resolve down too far to fine detail.

John would have objected to this, she knew. He would have called this man 'too dangerous', already having decried his interference – but from where she stood, 'dangerous' was what they _needed _right now.

That he allowed this torture without a word of objection… no, she wasn't going to think about it. She didn't like her opinion of him when she did.

He thought it was in everyone's best interests to do what he was doing, to hopefully pull – as he'd called it once – "a rabbit out of the hat" at the last moment but she knew that was pure fantasy. Aeryn didn't know why the power was out but she was going to take advantage of it.

"A rabbit," she muttered with a huff, and no little disdain. "Unlikely."

She positioned herself to catch him, managed the last clamp, got a grip on him as he slumped free.

He was a bit heavier than she remembered. The body in her arms was _solid_, a kind of thick-lean, the muscle denser, not significantly larger. She acknowledged, if only a little reluctantly, the definite feminine appreciation for a well-cared-for male body she felt course through her as she balanced him on his way down.

_This one was no frelling rabbit._

Aeryn got him to the floor, knelt and pulled him onto her lap, bent her dark head and put her ear against his chest, listened for the steady _lub-lub_ of his strong heart, heard it and was more relieved than she thought she should have been then chided herself for it. Despite that all of his obvious 'differences' were cosmetic, his hard body and scarred face, missing eye and lightly greying-at-the-temples hair the products of circumstance, he was _not_ the same man she'd left on Command.

That was also a little too uncomfortably obvious.

She pulled his head up for a better look, to check for wounds she might have missed.

His face she studied with care, even though she knew she wasting time. A tentative finger traced the silver faded scars that bisected his eye, and she knew that eventually he'd have that organ back, the patch a repair kit - and a smart one – a slow and careful rebuild would mean a perfect replacement. He'd been to some reputable Diagnosians, obviously.

The finger lingered and she caught herself. _I _have _a Crichton_, she told herself with some dark humour. She hadn't even reconciled in herself if this one could be considered a Crichton at all. He didn't act like one – okay, that wasn't true – he acted like a Crichton that… _just admit it, Aeryn_… fine, like a Crichton would left behind, cut off from any hope, changing to survive. She knew what had driven him – her, a chance to go home, to bring boons to his people, to give her a taste of a 'normal', different life. She'd often pondered it in her deep thoughts, ones she kept entirely to herself, guarded by walls of guilt and regrets for "what-might-have-beens", those few nights when she'd go out and stare up at the stars and wonder.

Take those things away and what _would_ a Crichton do – become - under those stresses? It _had _happened, no matter how she and John spun it.

She looked back down at his face through her occulars. She could see the last few cycles in that face – sharp and angular, too few regular meals, hard living, high stress, low lows. He looked like a veteran of a war or two and she knew how that changed people. The depths she'd seen in his eye were still there but they were darker waters, predators patrolling their deeps, shadows keeping watch, keeping light away.

_I did this, _she told herself with a stab of self-loathing, a certainty the origin of which she could not determine. _Now I'll have to pay for it._

"I'm sorry," she whispered at him, not knowing precisely what she was apologizing for, wanting to, knowing he'd never accept it conscious.

_Part of the price,_ she sighed.

The impulsive kiss she gave him (_the lips the same, the taste the same but the feeling different, a little heady_) a few microts later was also something she chose not acknowledge as anything more than a product of a pure foolish impulse, after-battle tension – that was all.

When he moved, she broke the contact, pulled her head back, feeling foolish.

This was out of character for her.

But then, what the frell _was_ anything approaching sane these days? She could be forgiven a few irrationalities.

They _weren't_ the same. They were and they weren't and she had no time – she never seemed to have the time – to reconcile anything.

That it had felt so absolutely _right_ just troubled her all the more.

_Frell. Frell. Frell. Frell and frell._

"First things first," she muttered and waited for him to come around.

* * *

**THE PAIN HAD GONE,** but it lingered in his cells, his muscles sore and stiff from pain-induced contraction, one or two he'd actually pulled. He felt as if he'd been kneaded like dough in some giant's hands, mashed and crushed and stretched and finally reshaped into something that only vaguely resembled its original shape.

_Nerve-god-frelling-damn-induction_. Miriya had mentioned she'd undergone something similar – probably the same damn contraption and his respect for her went up a notch. That had been the worst physical pain – period – that he'd _ever_ endured.

Dar'shanne had something similar for 'treasure hunting' – what he called interrogations. Inflict any level of pain you liked and not leave a single mark. Not a bruise, not a scratch, but leave only the suffering of a taste of a soul in hell.

It had a way of loosening tongues.

That his interrogators hadn't actually bothered to ask him anything was a mystery he didn't care to solve.

His body felt much heavier than normal but would be serviceable given some time. One side of his head felt _very_ hot and he hoped to hell his inhibitor hadn't fried. It was, he realized, the only thing that had saved him. The pain he knew had been intended to be _much_ worse than that to which he'd been subjected.

Dammit if he didn't owe that Medican a bonus and a half.

He was also, he decided, rather tired of getting the crap kicked out of him.

He tried moving, found he could do it, before registering he was no longer in the pain machine but on the floor and that it was very dark.

_Okay,_ he thought_. Good._

Something he registered next was a scent he'd long attempted to excise as pleasant from his mind but was now _very_ close and his first thought that Miriya or Shiv had found him was quickly disabused.

_What the frell_, some utterly perplexed part of his mind muttered in sheer disbelief, _was _she _doing here?_

"_First things first,"_ he heard her mutter and almost smiled. That _was_ the universal motto for those without options, he thought sardonically. The thought hardened in his head.

He remembered his vow: she'd share John's fate, no matter what she did. He struggled to sit up and she helped him but he pulled away, put his back to a console. He still couldn't see her, was glad for it.

Aeryn had expected his reaction mostly but she still resented it – just a little – resenting the almost automatic rejection.

"When?" he croaked, voice strained in a throat long-gone dry. She knew he meant the power outage.

"Just over an hour," she told him. _Hour. Not arn. I guess I_ have _gone native_, she mused, only slightly less bitter than she had been.

She saw him nod.

"Here," she said, proffering her other pair of occulars. "Night-vision devices. They work – well, well enough." She put it in his outstretched hand and watched him put them on, his movements slow and deliberate, no doubt his body was still wracked by the aftermath of the induction.

_There she was._

The NVD's lit the room in a blue cast. _Half-an-hour._ That gave him an arn and three-quarters, give-or-take, to get the frell out of here. Okay. He could work with that. He struggled to his feet and she came to help, but he shoved her away.

The only agenda he cared about now was his own. A quick call for Harvey netted him only silence but he figured Harve had dug himself in somewhere to get away from the induction and would probably surface once he got going. His head throbbed but his inhibitor still seemed to working to spec and he tapped it twice and fresh pain lanced through his skull then ebbed. The woman in front of him became "Officer Sun" once again with one more tap.

Aeryn watched him rub his head, was frankly surprised he was even on his feet this soon. He staggered, slightly. She saw his face go grim.

"I need a weapon." He growled, stumbled off to find another locker. Something told her not to follow him, so she didn't. She doubted any of the guns on this section would work. She watched him almost stumble over Blio, stop, seemingly glance back at her. Then he moved on.

"Will you be all right?" she tried, got only a dismissive wave in response. She knew she needed to take advantage of this darkness. She had to go, do what she had to – and do it now. "I need to go." She told him, saw him stop again. A short nod later – more to himself – and he turned his back to her and went on looking for a locker. Aeryn shook her head and took her leave of him.

_Right. Part of the price._

Whatever he was going to do, she knew better than to get in his way.

He watched her go, saw her limp slightly, holding her side. He found himself faintly surprised. He found the very dead D'g'sta and knew _someone_ had killed them in the dark and by hand, too. Why do all this if she was just going to run back to Johnny? They were both better off with the Creature dead and she had to know that.

No.

If she'd helped him, it sure as hell wasn't because she was doing it _for_ him.

All for Johnny. Aeryn Sun's All.

Yeah, okay.

He hoped that devotion translated into knowing when to run for it, because one way or another he was going to smash this Carrier and send Scorpius to hell. He planned to get his people off but everyone else was on their own.

Crichton left the non-operative pistols where he found them. Until the power came back on, they were simply useless. He needed to get _off_ this damn ship.

Then…

…_boom._

But first…

John had to go.


	10. Step 9: Set Priorities

"**SO,"** John said to a glowering Ereel, "we now grasp the _significance_ of what is being done here. Right?"

"Yes," she replied after a moment.

"We also know now that the primitive knows more about wormholes than _all of you put together_, right?"

Her answer took a few seconds longer than her first.

"Yes."

"We also know," John continued, rubbing it in, "who exactly is in charge. _Right_?"

"_Scorp _–" she began but John cut her off brusquely, thrusting his face at her.

"_In this fucking room, it's_ me!" He roared then paused and said very calmly, "Right?"

Ereel's eyes held nothing but defiance.

"Correct." She ground out. "For now."

John suddenly laughed and backed off.

"_You_ – I like your moxy. You make me laugh. You can stay." He slapped her on the back as he walked past her and didn't see her face darken but was well aware it had. He stopped before his machine. He knew aggravating Ereel was not really helping, but it wasn't hurting him, either. He needed time yet. Tech Renaa approached him slowly and eyed the machine.

"Crichton… may I ask what you call this device?"

"Ah, see – deference. A little respect never hurt nobody."

Renaa opened her mouth and then closed it. She was slightly more even-tempered than her superior and refused to rise to the human's bait.

"This," John continued, "is stealing fire from the gods. What I call a 'Coherent Point Source Displacement Wave Invertor'." He smiled a lopsided smile at her. "Or F. o. G., for short."

"Ehf oh gee?"

"Inside joke, not important. Suffice to say this thing when it's finished can end _any_ war, instantly."

"_That_ is a rather broad – and risky – claim to make," Ereel warned him from behind, "many have come before with an 'ultimate weapon' that has done nothing."

"They weren't me," John told her with a contemptuous wave, "and they didn't have _this_."

"You do not have forever to complete it, Crichton." Ereel reminded him.

"You're a bundle of laughs, you know that?" John turned and walked back to his workstation. "It only needs a few more things and some tweaking." He informed her. _And that off switch_, he thought to himself, _although I'm debating giving one to you bastards. Might be worth it to just off the lot of you. All nice, clean and final. I advance Earth, oh, a few hundred years or so and then we rise up and take your place. Humanity – better, stronger and faster. A Golden Age like no other._

_It's got a definite appeal…_


	11. Step 10: Exits Are Here, Here, and Here

**THEY WERE RESTING** just above the _Vengeance's_ bay when a 'hunting team' found them. One trooper managed a shout before Blade Maiden and Mage made short work of them. They were stripped of weapons and infras which were then passed around.

"We do realize that he's floating in a vacuum down there, right?" Miriya asked no one in particular, pulling an infra on and grimacing as the strap pulled her hair painfully. Nice. She could barely keep her now-wholly-owned body moving but it registered pain _just fine_.

_Stupid nerve endings._

"So?" Haxer sounded unconcerned. Chak'sa was leaning on him heavily, her armor's projections digging into him. He didn't care. Now that he knew how she _really_ felt about him, he could endure much if necessary. She was warm against his back, her chin on his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his cheek, a sigh now and then. Even as serious as their situation was, he enjoyed feeling this way yet he knew she was suffering.

"Do you see a _suit_ on any of us?"

"Yeah, that's a point." He looked down and over at the Vigilante, visible thanks to the Earthshine below. She _was_ a beautiful ship he mused. "Situationally pertinent but functionally in error."

"You still fezziked?" Miriya countered. "There's no 'error' about it, unless you have one up your deranged eema."

A growl came from Chak'sa at that but Hax just shook his head.

"I am indeed still 'fezziked'. This does not change the factual nature of it being an _error_, my dear simulacrum," - giving as good as he got, to her muttered '_frell you'_, Cha's quiet laugh at his ear - "because we don't _need_ frelling suits."

"Look, I know a vacuum isn't _necessarily_ a problem – it's just a matter of how long any of us can go without breathing and that's _not_ in dispute. Not that it matters with a dead ship, anyway."

"Miriya," Shiv's smooth voice came from the gloom. "Remember my memory is long and my reach longer."

Miriya turned toward the direction of that voice. She stood taller and braced herself. She had no chance against Shiv, she knew that. She wouldn't go easy though.

"You gonna kill me now, is that it? You've got interesting timing."

Shiv stepped into the light and raised her hand. In it was a cylinder that looked like a smooth version of a television remote control. Behind her Haxer snorted a laugh.

"You are not so nearly knowledgeable as you believe yourself to be."

So saying, Shiv pointed the _Vengeance's _control rod and pressed a button. Miriya finally recognized it and shook her head. Without power in the ship, it was as useless as loomas on a…

Down below, the Vigilante that had been moored and floating at an angle to deck of the hanger had exterior lights snap on. A moment later she righted herself. A moment after that, she lowered herself gently to the deck while extending landing struts. The glow of a magnetic field snapped on around the main hatchway on the forward strut. They didn't have to hold their breaths for long at all now.

"The _frell?_ How does he still have power?" Miriya gaped with surprise evident. She glared back at Haxer.

"Don't look at me, it was Cha's idea. Part of that defensive program of Crichton's. All the _Vengeance's_ power sources have something the Boss called 'quantum-laced shields'. It's _always_ been a mistake to think Cha's just a pretty face, Miriya." Chak'sa chuckled softly. "He proposed them and Cha designed them."

"Okay… nice work, but how did he know he'd need _that_ kind of shielding…?" An incredulous look, then, "He _planned_ to come through the wormhole?"

"I doubt it. But _forward_ planning never hurts. Too many damn variables to plan for everything but it can't hurt to try."

"When _did_ you install them?"

Again Cha's low laugh at his ear.

"Remember when you came back from your two weekens 'vacation' and got put to work fixing glitches?"

"Not glitches?" She sighed, deciding to just go with it all. She was too tired for this dren anyway.

"Not exactly." He smiled at her. "And the Boss did keep you …distracted, if you remember."

"Nice going. Subvert the Subvertor."

"Wasn't Iriya the Subvertor?" Stark asked softly from his shadow.

Miriya started then stopped and considered it. So she was… what exactly _did_ that make her now that Iriya was gone? Some of her technical knowledge had been Iriya's. How prodigious a tech did she remain?

"That would explain all the circuitry realignment I did. I wondered what the frell that was for." Miriya slid to the floor using the wall as support. She was unbelievably tired.

"Wormhole tech." Haxer commented. "I think we sometimes forget just how intelligent the Boss _actually_ is."

"I do not." Shiv corrected him.

"Okay, everyone but Shiv."

Thadon's voice came from behind the Blade Maiden.

"We should proceed."

"Right. Grab your partners and let's dance this dance." Haxer agreed.

There was a general if weary agreement and Haxer shouldered Iriya again, Stark helped Miriya back to her feet and she waved him on. They made much better time with the infras. They managed the hanger level into a large open space when troopers again swarmed them.

Thadon and Shiv darted among them and troopers fell. Chak'sa killed the two that charged directly at her, spearing both neatly with her staff but a third knocked her down in her weakened state and Haxer literally threw Iriya at him to prevent him shooting her – followed by his solid boot to the man's head that neatly snapped his neck. He helped Cha to her feet but more troopers charged up the corridor. She shoved him aside and with her blood roaring in her ears sent her staff singing through them. Haxer watched in amazement as she ploughed through the soldiers as if she were fully fit and hearty. He could see the fierce smile on her face with her eyes blazing. Thadon and Shiv joined her, having fashioned dual short swords and together they dove the troopers to the end of the corridor. Haxer managed to close it behind them and Thadon thrust a blade into the manual locking mechanism. Almost immediately the door began to bow in toward them.

"They must be using a mechanical piston! That would explain how they're getting through all the damned closed doors so quickly! _We've got to go_!" Haxer prompted them. Chak'sa fell back to the wall just as he reached her.

"You can't keep doing this, Cha. You know that."

She seemed to be wavering in and out.

"I will _not_ allow them …to harm you. I _am_ …of the _Arena_…!"

He got an arm under her, hauled-walked her back up the corridor.

"Listen, 'Fist', I'd rather you not kill yourself, yeah?"

Chak'sa flared up angrily, seemed to remember where she was and focused back on him.

"Yes," A pause, "but it is getting harder to avoid."

As if to punctuate her words the door behind them groaned and buckled, bending in to rattle up the corridor. Troopers followed it in.

Chak'sa thrust him from her but he grabbed her arm as she did, used her own momentum to power her up the corridor straight into Stark who pulled her into a side corridor. Haxer grabbed Iriya and started for it. Thadon flashed by him as he reached it.

"Go, Shivi'na and I will cover you."

"Where's _Miriya_?"

"I have not seen her – _go_! If she is to be found, she will be!" With that he darted away and Haxer motioned Stark to get going. They were halfway down the corridor when the corridor door boomed down and shortly after Shiv and Thadon re-joined them.

"No Miriya?" Stark inquired to two shaken heads.

"Nothing we can do." Haxer said grimly. Something in his tone said he wasn't surprised at her absence.

They made it to the hanger and a hatchway leading in with no further trouble. Haxer had led them to an emergency hatch that could be opened by a large crisscross locking latch on the door. All other entrances would have bulkheads dropped against the depressurization.

"I hate to ask, Cha…" he began, knowing it would take her strength to open.

"Yet you keep asking," She jibed, then became serious. "I can do it."

All the atmospheric pressure on their side against the vacuum on the other was almost as good as a lock. Stark offered to help but she refused him. He would simply be in the way, and they needed his light. Given the noises behind them, Shiv and Thadon were needed to keep watch. He would help but he had to keep hold of Iriya. Once the door opened he'd have no time to hoist her and run.

_It was one door,_ she told herself, feeling almost at her lowest, _one door to freedom, the auto-doc, to rescue her crew and the man she loved. She _would _open it. _

Doing it would damage her but she didn't care. Her last fight to leave the arena had brought her as close to death as any had ever. Only her own ruthlessly relentless determination had kept her alive then. It would do so again.

Chak'sa gripped the latch and clamping her teeth together against the pain she knew she would self-inflict when she pulled, she set her feet, took a deep breath and…

… more troopers poured into the room.

* * *

**MIRIYA LISTENED TO THE STRUGGLE** and wished them well. From the alcove she'd ducked into as they'd ran for the hanger, she cranked a manual spinner which slowly raised a panel behind her. Beyond that lay interior passageways used by techs to service the great ship and keep them from clogging corridors. Like a nervous system it ran everywhere in the Carrier and she knew her way around. Despite all that had happened Miriya wasn't finished. Crichton wouldn't trust her again – _if he ever did_, she mused – and she definitely didn't need Shiv perforating her organs before she got a chance to have them all to herself for a change. The Peacekeepers would never consider her an actual person. They barely considered their subversion arm operatives people at all at the best of times, what with all those endless 'Purity' violations. If it had been Iriya that had been the Subvertor as Stark had pointed out, what did that actually make her? She knew full well she was merely a compilation of the psyches of other people who had once lived and that there was no actual person named 'Miriya Breannados'. To herself – and she definitely felt like a _self_ – she thought and existed and lived like any other person. She'd just lacked, as a psyche, a place to call her own.

That had changed. Now she _was_ a person and she had all the necessary prerequisites. She smiled to herself as she made her way into the corridors behind the walls, hearing the ship slowly coming to life. Of course she was a person now. She had parents, a father named Haxer and a mother named Iriya. She understood love and desire, power and ambition and the absolute joy in taking breaths that belonged solely to you. Miriya also knew what _purpose_ meant and she had one now. She'd never had a home, she had nowhere to return to simply because she'd never been anywhere worth the going. Even though she'd never had one, Miriya knew what _home_ meant – it was a place _to_ be, where you could _be_, where you made the most difference and accomplished everything you could. Miriya didn't have a home. Not yet.

But she knew where to find one.

* * *

**THE DAMPENER'S CHIME** stopped. It rang out just once more and then died to a hum. It did not cease spinning, but the word-of-mouth "comm system" reported outer areas of the Carrier regaining power in increments. Regular comms began to work better, if still intermittently. Generator output rose to half power and lights came dimly on, shadows still deep and everywhere. Troopers found their weapons half-recharged. Sensors came on slowly.

The Carrier was coming back to life.


	12. Step 11: Make a Will

**CRICHTON MADE IT TO HIS DESTINATION **with little fuss, the dark keeping his identity secret and had almost missed it save for the sudden flood of light that lit up the corridor down a junction – a door opening and closing. He knew the only place to have power on this ship would be wherever Scorpius had his wormhole material.

He had about half-an-hour left. His head ached with a pain that kept sending black dots scurrying across his field of vision. He felt as if he were nearing the end of a thousand metra marathon without pause. His body demanded he stop and give it a rest and he refused. _Too much to do_, he told it. _Maybe later_.

The one guard near the door was stretched out with a quick choke-hold and Crichton had pinched the mag-key to the lab and was in before anyone saw him do it. Crichton took the man's pistol.

The room was crammed with instrumentality and Crichton had no problem slipping behind a row of processors. He could hear the murmurs of the techs and snuck around to get a better look at the rest of the room. His eye ached in the light.

As he suspected, the pistol was fully charged in this room.

Crichton could see John in front of a bank of monitors only a couple of motras away. Next to him a tall dark-haired woman in the uniform of a tech officer watching and memorizing. After a few moments, John muttered something to her and she walked off, heading deeper into the lab toward a tall device calling for some particular person. He squinted at the contraption and shook his head.

John went back to what he'd been doing and Crichton could hear him dictating series of symbols and numbers to the computer. Some he recognized, some he didn't but he knew _none_ of them should have been uttered within a thousand light years of this ship or its occupants. Crichton could see near John's notebook and his disgust deepened.

_So much for guarding it with your life, huh, John? Not that it will matter soon, either._

Crichton counted techs and saw no troopers. _Time to get this show on the road. _Rolling his shoulders, he sighed inaudibly and threw caution to the wind stepping into view and casually strolling forward just as John stood and stretched.

"_How the fuck…?!" _John stumbled back in his surprise.

Crichton kept walking, face grim and composed, his intent unmistakable.

"I don't know how you managed it but you have to know you can't…"

"Don't care."

"There's nowhere to go," John told him. "We're all _trapped_. You, me, everyone."

Crichton halted a motra away and John backed off. Some techs ran off for help. Crichton ignored Ereel's demands and continued to stare at his counterpart. A few techs pulled pistols but seemed reluctant to risk it.

John suddenly reached back and stole a pulse pistol from one of the armed techs. Crichton's own flashed into view. For long seconds they stood in standoff.

"_None_ of this would have happened if you'd just stayed on the other side of the wormhole!" John's face darkened. "All you had to do was _stay the hell away!_"

"Wasn't my idea." Both guns were rock-steady. Crichton saw John's finger tighten and was almost proud of him. Kill him and John's troubles went away – even though that wasn't actually true. You worked with what you had. Crichton also knew that John had some plan of his own but only one Crichton plan per Carrier, he mused. He'd already taken too long. It was time to end this and with a quick one-two step, Crichton had trapped John's arm and gun under his left arm, his own jammed hard against John's forehead.

"_Perspective_, John." A cold smile. "You don't have any." Final. John could see nothing but death in that one eye and knew he had only a second of life left. "Goodbye."

John had nothing else, so he yanked himself backward in a burst of ferocious energy with a yell, jamming a foot in Crichton's guts and shoving him away. A mildly-surprised Crichton reeled back and John missed his with his pulse shot, but only barely. Crichton surged to his feet with a fierce grin.

John still had it in him. Not that it'd save him.

In the distance the yells of approaching troopers grew in volume. John stepped forward and Crichton dropped him with a leg sweep that had John hitting hard and pistol skittering across the floor. He twisted around and leapt back at Crichton and managed a few decent punches before Crichton came back with a very solid one that made his vision go red with silver dancing flecks and sent him back. Crichton climbed to his feet and spat blood from a punch that had made him bite the inside of his cheek and John came right back, slammed his head into Crichton's stomach, powering them both across the room.

Crichton planted his feet and slid half-a-metre then drove an elbow into John's back, eliciting a pained grunt and breaking his momentum. Crichton dropped an arm around John's neck and he twisted out before Crichton could apply any pressure. A backward kick from John sent Crichton on a two-step stagger back. John scrambled away for some distance and came up with another pistol.

"Think I'd go easy, did ya?" John panted as he sighted down the gun. "Nobody understands why, you know that? You're supposed to _be_ me and even you don't get it."

Crichton watched the techs back away. None of the techs tried to interfere, the tech officer having ordered them all back. Troopers were hammering on the doors and Crichton briefly wondered why no one was letting them in. A quick glance at the officer and he could see the cold contempt on her face as she glared at John. Not a fan of the new messiah then. Hell, whatever worked.

"I get it, John. We are what we are," Crichton told him and lashed out with a sudden kick that sent the pistol to the ceiling followed by a fast hammer of a fist that doubled John with a sharp grunt – but John came back with a hard left to Crichton's chest that ejected the air from his lungs in a sudden gust followed by a swift right to the stomach that disallowed any air back in.

Crichton staggered back with a heavy wheeze and a cough, John's ferocity unexpected but in a way oddly satisfying.

_Not bad, John. Nice to see you haven't forgotten _every_thing. _When he looked up, John had acquired yet another pistol from a tech.

Then John made the one mistake he always did and Crichton smiled to himself. John started talking again.

"Look, it doesn't have to be like this – you can help me - I _know_ what's at stake – better than anybody – even _you_. I finally have the power to change everything, once and for all." An accusing finger was thrust at him. "You can see it, can't you? _If_ you are me, you can't help but think I'm right."

Crichton shook his head then suddenly leapt forward and grabbed John's gun arm and twisted until he heard a crack and a pop. As John howled, Crichton sent a punch that rocked John and snapped his head back. Without relinquishing the arm, Crichton yanked him back.

"You _talk_ too frelling much." Crichton snarled and drove another fist into his doppelganger's jaw. Behind him the pistol clattered to the floor and John grunted from the blow. Another followed and John stopped seeing red and saw black instead. Crichton sighed to himself and made a decision. He then shoved his hand into his pocket then out and pulled his fist back, left it hanging in the air for a few microts. Then he clenched it so hard his knuckles cracked and in a show of supreme contempt slapped John hard across his dazed and bloody face sending a spray of sweat and blood flying. Apparently the tech officer had thought better of it and he heard her order the doors opened.

"One way or another, John," Crichton told his lolling, semi-conscious head, "you're _dead_."

He dropped the semi-conscious man to the floor and backed away just as troopers burst in. He found the pulse pistol John had just dropped and sent a few shots at the troopers more for effect than actual damage. They scattered at the unexpected fire and he bolted out the door he came in. Darkness wrapped around him and his infras went back on his head.

He jogged down the corridor, flexing his sore hand then wiped it on his trousers, a slow smile growing on his face. Not _exactly_ what he'd planned but beggars and choosers…

It'd work. So far, so good.


	13. Step 12: Don't Bet Against The House

**SHE WALKED ONTO COMMAND LIKE SHE OWNED THE PLACE** and presented herself to Braca with a snappy salute.

"Iriya Nerrimandi," she told him to his incredulous face, "Subvertor Class _Tevan Nior_, Authorization Mektha Level 11A. Liaison Station Chief Falla Norn. Reporting for duty."

Braca simply smiled and ordered troopers on her. She smiled into the gun barrels.

"Of course you are." He told her dryly. "Take her away!"

"Hold on!" She protested as troopers grabbed her and began to drag her off.

"Yes…" Scorpius raised a hand as he approached. Behind him a woman dressed as he was, blue haired and blue eyed, his attendant Froy. "…hold on a moment." He went to her and looked her over. 'Iriya' crossed her arms and merely looked insolent.

"You've been a guest with us here before." Scorpius informed her and Miriya nodded. She remembered. _Bastard._

"So you should know I'm sincere." Miriya told the pale spectre before her. "My rank is genuine."

"Do I know this?" Scorpius reposted. "Why shouldn't I just have you summarily executed for treason and desertion?"

"What good would that do you?" Miriya cocked her head at him. "You think you're winning."

"I am winning." Scorpius sounded certain.

"You don't know Crichton very well at all, do you?"

"On the contrary. I know he will do his level best to betray me at the first available opportunity or _would_, were this any other circumstance. Yet, I own his planet now. I control his levers."

Miriya smiled broadly, looked about at the gloom.

"I've no doubt you control some, but I wasn't talking about _that_ one. I'm talking about the one you don't have. You have nothing _he_ wants – and he has no levers at all." She unfolded her arms and looked around Command. "Personally I don't care about either one. They're your problem and you're welcome to them."

"And yet, you still think you have something that will save _you_…"

"I _know_ what Crichton's building. I know how it _works_. I also have _alternatives_ if it doesn't. I am a _very_ good Subvertor - as your records will doubtless show." Miriya was glad Sebaceans didn't sweat. "I have an …influence over him far more persuasive than anything you can beat him with – and mine's not something he can readily defy."

Behind them a tech handed Braca a computer pad. He scanned it.

"Scorpius," Braca called, "she _is_ in the files as what she claims. There's doubt but no official disownment." Miriya nodded, hiding her relief. Calculated risks and bureaucracy slower than glaciers. "This says she's been with the other Crichton for some time."

"Oh, I have been," she smiled saucily, "he's told me things. Things he'd only tell to an …intimate friend. He trusts me."

Scorpius remained unreadable but his eyes held skepticism and Miriya doubted they ever held much of anything else. She also knew he knew more about her than he would ever give away. The torture she'd endured last time she was here assured her of that fact. It would either grant her credibility or doom her. Not that she really had all that much of a choice. She glanced at Froy who was slowly circling her and her trooper 'escort'.

"She's also been enhanced," Braca continued, "with a vrasij-heppa blend alteration."

Again Miriya nodded, resenting the 'addition' but understanding its uses now.

"Your 'persuasion'?" Scorpius noted.

"It's a rather _specific_ persuasion." Miriya locked eyes with the half-breed. "Surely _you_ can see how valuable I am."

Scorpius walked away with his hands behind his back. Froy stopped somewhere behind Miriya. Miriya tried to ignore her.

"What is John building?' he asked as he turned back to her.

"Something you don't understand," Miriya told him confidently, "but definitely something you want. He'll make sure of that."

Scorpius seemed to go still a moment. Then he turned and walked away.

"Send her to Crichton," he told Braca. "You will be useful." Miriya almost smiled in relief. Scorpius stopped but did not turn around. He raised a finger and Miriya felt a sudden sharp pain at the base of her skull. She slapped a hand to the spot and wheeled on Froy, who was standing placidly with an injector in hand.

"Just a wafer of insurance." Scorpius told her as he retreated into the gloom, "If you do anything else _other_ than be useful to _me_, you will be killed instantly, without warning." Froy stepped back and then followed her master.

"Take her to Crichton," Braca told his troopers and then instantly forgot her as techs approached with reports.

Miriya rubbed the back of her neck and did her best to stay composed. She was beginning to understand better just why Scorpius, reviled as he was among Peacekeepers, was given so much power regardless. Iriya would have admired the son of a hazmot but Miriya was hoping beyond hope she could back up her boasts.

She was beginning to regret being alone in her head, just a little.


	14. Step 13: Bet Against The House

**AERYN ARRIVED AT THE LAB** just as Crichton had left and heard the guards yelling for backup. Some charged down the corridor, shouting that the "pirate" had escaped.

_Why would he come…? Oh, frell!_

She bolted into the room and saw John hauled up unconscious to be deposited into a chair as medtechs swarmed him. He'd been quite expertly beaten. One medtech locked a brace around his right arm. There was a muted _crunch_ and John snapped awake with a yell. He immediately set to complaining about the pain. His face was a mess with huge purple-brown bruises, swollen lips and one eye swelling shut. His left cheek looked to be gouged open. It was raw and darkening even as she looked at it.

"What …_happened_?" She slowed her dash across the lab and stopped to stand behind the medtech treating his swelling face.

"Tha' damn _imboster_, that's wha'!" John was in too much pain to be reasonable, his voice slightly garbled by his swollen lips. "_He fluckin' tribed to kill me!_"

Techs around them nodded. Aeryn frowned. Something was not meshing here. Facts were not lining up.

"It seems odd he failed," was all she said with hands on hips, looking thoughtful. John thought she should have looked a bit more _concerned_.

"Wha's _thab_ suppose' to mean?!" He pointed to his swelling face. "I did'n jus' stan' there an' take it! He tribed to _kill me_!"

"Did he have a weapon?" Still that thoughtful, unconcerned cast on her features.

"Well, yeah… I ha' one too…"

Aeryn pointed at his face.

"What's all this then?" John grimaced, glared at the medtech as he sprayed a healing agent on his cheek.

"I nogged it oud ob his han' an' he did th' same. It habbened abter." He spat as he turned the glare back to her. "So?"

"Why beat you when he could have just shot you from the doorway?" She glared back at him. "Why give you the chance?"

John waved the medtech away, stood. She was a little too concerned about the other's motives while missing one undeniable fact.

"Why do you soun' like you're tryin' to jubtify him?"

Aeryn faced him calmly. She was done trying to justify anything. Somehow the Other's actions were starting to make a kind of odd sense. Nothing she could say definitively but she got a distinct feeling... why _would_ he come here? It jeopardized his escape and it didn't seem like he'd waste the time for something as petty as revenge now, of all times - not _this_ way, at any rate. It would have been infinitely easier to have killed John any number of ways. Aeryn was fairly certain the Other knew a good many by now.

_His plan._ _Of course he has a plan. _She almost smiled but refrained. _I think _his _is actually working._

"It just doesn't make sense."

John just glowered at her and limped away. Aeryn changed the subject.

"John – did you know this is the only section on this Carrier with power?"

"Whad?" That side-tracked him. The agent seemed to working on his face, the swelling fading. "Whad are you talkin' abou'?"

"The rest of the Carrier is dark – something has shut down all power sources except for _this_ room." She crossed her arms. "Something they forgot to mention?"

"I don' know whad thad means, Aeryn. I've been here deh whole time." She just shook her head and tried again.

He finally noticed the bruise on her face.

"What habbened to you?"

"It's _dark_ out there, John," she dismissed it. Something had to penetrate. They were running out of time and she was running out of patience. She'd saved the worst news for last.

"They fired the Frag Cannons. _At Earth_. Before we lost power." She watched him closely as she told him. Her chest still ached with every breath and his seeming denseness was not helping.

"_Whad?" _He glared at the techs, this time. "I didn' know thad!" Real anger. At least that was _some_thing.

Ereel raised her hands.

"We were not informed, either." She told him truthfully. "We have been isolated here."

"I don't know what kind of damage there was but…" Aeryn continued.

"God_damn_ it… !"He sat back down and seemed deflated. "Dere's nudding we can do abou' it, Aeryn." It was her turn to be startled and her patience vanished. John Crichton did _not_ do this. He reacted. He got _outraged_! She dragged him to his feet and pulled him close and said low and fast:

"_Are you serious?_ I just told you they _fired at Earth! _Who knows how many they've _killed_ and you…"

She could see the emotions boiling behind his eye but couldn't tell what he was feeling. He was hiding something.

"I can't stop. Not now. I'm trapped, Aeryn. Me, you, all of us. I have to finish this. You _have_ to trust me." She released him as she shook her head and took a step back. "I couldn't have stopped it."

"You _could have tried_! You can try and make sure it doesn't happen again. You must have some leverage!"

"I'm building it _now_." He gingerly inspected his face with his fingers. The bruises on his face were fading to yellow splotches.

"This is _insane_, John!" She waved at his Invertor. "You told me once that you would _die_ before you let any of this ever come to pass…!"

"I _have_ to see the bigger picture, Aeryn. Dying wouldn't stop them. I don't have choices here! I can only do what I can! I'll win in the end, we all will!"

He could see the disappointment growing in her eyes. He didn't like keeping things from her but he had no choice. All he could say was all he had said. It would cost him but maybe it was a price he had to pay. He had so much to do, so many to save. Now many to _avenge_.

"All you have to do is _trust me."_

"I'm trying to, I _want_ to, but…" She shook her head. If it _were_ a definite plan, she did not like being excluded nor would she tolerate it. "No. The John Crichton I know would find another way. "

"Another way with the knife already at my throat?"

"And you hand them a gun to go along with the knife?" Her frustration with him grew. "How does that help?"

"It's _my_ gun. They pull the trigger and I win."

"Tell me your plan."

"I can't. You wouldn't understand it and I don't have the time to explain it."

Aeryn just stared at him, incredulity in her eyes.

"Who _are_ you?" She asked after long seconds and he winced. It couldn't be helped. A trooper decided they'd talked long enough and ordered her out. Pulse rifles pointed at her and she gave John a grim look.

"Aeryn, please. _Trust me_."

She stared at him with disbelief writ plain in her eyes and a faint disgust on her face until a guard motioned for her to move.

"I'm doing what I have to, what I _must_ do. You know that. Just give me the benefit of doubt." She felt a strange sense of _deja-vu_ and visions given her by the Hakke Ancient flashed through her head. She'd had this conversation before, she realized suddenly. Out there somewhere, some when, a woman just like her had stood before a John Crichton and made a decision that had ushered in the end of everything… and she'd done it out of love.

Her grey eyes went cold and John flinched internally at it. Somewhere behind those eyes he could see forces moving, see doors closing and visions shifting. He was losing more than time. It _had_ to happen his way or it wouldn't work, of this he was certain. After another moment she seemed to reach a conclusion and her eyes softened but he knew there was an end written there.

"I understand more now than I had, John." A pause. "Perhaps it _will_ matter." She nodded once. "You do what you have to do." She looked away.

He felt relief surge through him. Perhaps he'd been wrong…? When she looked back her eyes were steel again and his relief vanished. No. She was Aeryn Sun again and she knew how to make hard decisions as well.

"So will I."

Without another word she marched out, leaving the troopers to catch up.

John watched her go, heart heavy, feeling as if the weight of the world had just fallen on him. The painkiller the medtech had administered started to kick in and the ache in his face ebbed. One way or another, he'd have a reckoning with the son of a bitch with his misappropriated face. John would win in the end. He would. Eventually, Aeryn would see and understand everything he'd done and she would forgive him and they'd laugh about all of this nonsense.

With a pain-flecked cough he went back to work, trying to desperately believe that he had made the right choice.


	15. Step 14: Don't Play With Your Own Money

**CRICHTON EASILY DODGED THE TROOPERS **scrabbling up dark corridors, using walls and ceilings to move around and over their heads. Hanging with Shiv had been an education, her world never just straight on but up, under and over – whatever got you where you needed to be. Troopers ran past him and he could see that the power was slowing coming back. The lighting was gaining in strength. He shrugged, snuck easily into a munitions locker and found what he called a 'hardcoat' – like his longcoat but lined with the PK version of Kevlar and he casually pulled it on. A rifle went over his shoulder and he grabbed a couple of holsters, looping them over one another, adjusting the pistols butt-out, just the way he liked them. He missed his own but this was good enough for now and would serve. A ear-mounted comm went on and he activated it, heard low-power communications that were also gaining in strength as he listened. Reports of the "pirate crew" attempting escape, managing to get to the bay – "trapped there now" according to the trooper speaking. Crichton smiled to himself and stepped into the corridor.

"Trapped" was relative. His crew was no bunch of escaped prisoners, they were _professionals_. They weren't simply running around in the dark like headless chickens.

Crichton made his way toward an exit bay. He'd done everything he could from the inside. He needed a spacesuit and to get the hell out of this giant metal coffin. It was a calculated risk that it would go his way, but so had been pretty much everything else he'd done since he chose this path for himself. Just another day at the office. He had faith in very little except the universe being as peevish and fickle as possible. It would work or it wouldn't and it cost him nothing to try until it cost him everything. Granted 'everything' was also pretty damn relative.

It was time to convince one and all of his sincerity.

* * *

**JOHN'S HEAD HURT**, any meds they'd given him not seeming to do much of anything to alleviate the great pain in his head. The bastard could hit, he'd give him that. His chest felt congested, but the medtech had told him drugs for Sebaceans might have minor side effects on him. He'd ordered the techs to redouble their efforts, still seething from Aeryn's visit and what she'd told him about Earth. They'd _pay_, Scorpius especially. He stared grimly at his Invertor. Disguised as failsafe backup, his 'off-switch' was currently being installed – his _gift_ to Scorpius. He knew Scorpius would have many duplicated – one for every Carrier. They'd _talk_, those Invertors. It was part of the 'owner's manual' he was dictating for future users, they'd need to be linked to expand their effectiveness. Chained together _all_ would have to be active for any to be shut down.

By then it would be far, _far_ too late.

Someday John would travel to the empty space that had once been the combined horror of Peacekeeper and Scarran empires and Ozymandias-like leave a solemn punctuation for any future traveller wondering over the ruins.

_Look upon my just revenge and despair._

There was a slight commotion by a door that drew his attention and he coughed as he looked up. Pain lanced through his head and he scowled. When he saw _her_ step in, his scowl deepened.

Miriya Breannados walked into the room with a sway and a smile and John knew his day had just taken another turn for the worse.

* * *

**AERYN SUN** knew her way around a Carrier, even in the dark. Activity was increasing as she and her 'escort' were marching back to her temporary quarters. Halfway there her four guards were halved as they were called away by officers moving with purpose. Almost to her 'quarters', she lost another, leaving only one. That one she overpowered and left unconscious in a maintenance access way, his rifle over her shoulder, his jacket and cap on and she cutting the right silhouette in the gloom. Troopers and officers were moving with increased presence and all seemed to be going in the same direction. Strapping the trooper's pulse pistol to her thigh, inserting his comm into her ear, Aeryn nodded to herself and followed the last squad of troopers as they marched smartly by.

John had made his decision and Aeryn had at last made hers. Strangely enough she felt herself charged with energy, felt confident and sure, not having felt this way for some time. This was a perilous spot, her discovery would cause nothing but trouble yet she marched on. No matter how odd the situation might be, this felt like _living_ and she surprised herself anew with how much she seemed to need _edges, _needed challenges past goals she might never see come to fruition.

_Earth was safe_, John had told her and he'd been right. Safe. It was beautiful and maddening and like any settled world it was rife with irrationalities and cultures she couldn't begin to fathom, he the only reason she tolerated any of it. Try as she had, it had not felt like a home and she didn't like the feeling, it felt disloyal… but it couldn't be helped. Home was the stars and the Deep Dark between them, controlling immense machine power and making it dance to her tune, to her whim, to triumph and fighting the fight that mattered. A planet was where you rested or resupplied, not where you lived.

The 'Hakke' Ancient had shown her horrors but had not given her any definitive answers. John thought he could still win.

No matter what he believed and no matter how it might look, she would do whatever it took to save him from himself.


	16. Step 15: Cut Your Losses

**STARK HAD THE PRESENCE OF MIND** to position himself next to Chak'sa as she wrenched at the door. It didn't open, she simply hadn't the strength. The gladiator gasped and would have collapsed if he hadn't caught her. The power returned to their section – albeit not fully and troopers discovered their weapons worked much better now. They weren't close to full power yet, but that didn't deter shots smacking into the walls around them.

Stark half-carried Chak'sa to cover, struggling with her weight, made it to a bulkhead and got as low as he could. Haxer did the same with Iriya on the opposite side of the room. Thadon and Shiv rushed the troopers, nimbly dodging shots, although some hit and slowed them. If they took damage, Haxer couldn't see it, for they were slackened only a fraction of a microt. They killed a few, but the troopers retreated – and one tossed a grenade into the room as he did.

Thadon saw it.

Shiv did not.

Thadon hit her just as the grenade went off behind him and he took the brunt of it, the concussion shoving them both across the room. Shiv's surprise turned to anger, then to uncharacteristic concern as she realized just what had happened. Her hand she discovered had been severely damaged and Thadon was dead weight on her, a heavy strut from a wall on them both - and for a moment she thought him dead but his eyes fluttered and he groaned weakly.

"You are a _fool,_" she hissed at him, tried to push him off with her good hand, to free them.

"But you are …alive," he said weakly and she blinked at his voice. Shiv's eyes softened but her voice remained hard.

"_Twice_ the fool, then."

Shots began to hit near them and she tried to push him off again. Her hands came away bloody.

He saw her look. _Was that concern?_

"No… not lethal. Not that …it matters." He jerked suddenly as a shot hit him in his already-damaged back and Shiv felt hot anger surge through her.

_Cowards!_

"Take them all!" she heard a trooper shout and more flooded the room. Haxer shouted something incoherent.

_This is how it ends. _ Shiv thought with uncharacteristic fatalism. She looked into Thadon's face, at his weak smile.

"_I _am the fool," she told him and he found himself kissed hard, almost wanted to laugh at it, coming _now_ from her but it didn't matter when or why. It was awkward and rough and as sweet as the finest, purest Frestia Water.

They were interrupted by a loud and heavy crunch and a trooper screamed, wheeled only to take a full blast from a heavy rifle, the shot blowing through him and killing his fellow soldier behind. Shiv opened her eyes to see _Aeryn Sun_ boot a trooper in the chest, her pulse rifle out and firing, doubling her shots due to the power siphon. She did not miss and soldiers dropped. The rifle she threw to Haxer, a trooper's floored pistol she kicked to Stark.

"_Get the door!"_ Sun shouted at Haxer, who immediately raised the rifle and sent three rapid shots into it. She elbowed another trooper in the face, crunching his faceplate in, stepping and side-stepping through the troopers, a grim dance that killed and crippled. Stark shot one but was more concerned with Chak'sa. The door to the hanger groaned and Hax turned smoothly to send a single shot into the strut that kept Thadon and Shiv down. She surged up and killed two more.

"He hurt?" Aeryn enquired as she jogged to them.

"Yes but he says not badly." Shiv killed the last trooper. If she was surprised at Aeryn's presence she gave no sign. "There will be more."

"Get him, get that door open and to the ship. I'll cover you."

Shiv eyed her then nodded and went calmly back to Thadon and helped him to his feet. His back was a bloody mess but he was moving.

Haxer threw the rifle back to Aeryn and wasted no time handing Iriya to Stark before gathering Chak'sa up. Aeryn nodded to them. She levelled the rifle and planted her feet.

"_Now._ Don't wait."

Haxer simply nodded once and powered a kick into the weakened hanger door and it crashed open. In his head Ander was shouting incoherently about treason. Air gushed past them into the vacuum, pulled them along and they dragged themselves up the strut and into the ship where Haxer collapsed, Chak'sa falling beside him. Shiv propped Thadon against the wall and leapt nimbly over them to race to the Command. Stark half-carried Iriya in.

Chak'sa coughed once from the floor, a bubble of blood popping between her lips.

"_Cha…!" _Hax willed himself to his feet. In the back of his head he could hear Ander yelling for troops. It was getting harder to concentrate.

"My strength," she coughed, her voice muting his old self, "I underestimated it."

"_Frell!_ Shiv – we need full power _now!_"

"_The ship is responding,"_ came her calm voice.

Haxer gathered Chak'sa up. She slumped against him.

"Hold on for just a few more microts," he told her. "We'll get there!"

He began carry/dragging her down the corridor. She was clutching her belly and he could see her bright magenta blood dripping through her fingers.

"I am ..holding all …of it I can," she joked weakly and his anxiety rose until finally got her to the auto-doc.

"_Haxer…"_ Shiv commed him_. "I require you up here."_

Haxer cursed and Chak'sa clutched him, brought his attention back to her. He was frantically trying to get the auto-doc to cycle. Ander kept insisting he was wasting his time.

"I'm _frelling busy_, Shiv!"

Chak'sa gasped and coughed more blood. The damn auto-doc was taking far too long!

"_I have diverted power from the medbay,"_ she told him as calm as ever. "_The power systems are being erratic, I need weapons to help Officer Sun."_

"_What the de'spra'king frell!?_ _I_ _need_ the frokking auto-doc and I need it _now_!"

"_I am aware."_

Haxer cursed her roundly, his skill with language making them elaborate and cutting. As he cursed, he scrambled for a medkit. His only solution was the one thing in the medbay with its own internal power supply.

"Cha, there's no time for the 'doc! I have to put you in stasis. It's all we've got." She was starting to waver, her eyes seemingly unable to focus.

"_Haxer…!"_ Shiv. Ander insisted he listen to the assassin as the Scarran abomination was of no consequence. Haxer told him to frell off in thirty different ways in no uncertain terms and quickly released the locks on the stasis container used for people, called a 'flask'.

Hax found an emergency medkit, hit Chak'sa with everything he could find: neural stabilizers, internal knitters, tissue regens, began hurriedly but gently pulling her armor off. Once down to her bodysuit, he lifted her as gently as he could, lowered her into the flask - the _Vengeance_ had three. She was bleeding very badly, blood soaking through her suit and onto his clothes and hands.

"You'll be all right, Cha. You will."

She came back just for a moment, smiled at him and said clearly and very certain, "You will fix this."

He kissed her quickly and then slapped the auto controls. The flask began to close, the aperture folding over itself to seal her in.

"Remember the Sea."

She simply nodded once and closed her eyes. Blue mist swirled in the flask. Behind them Stark entered with Thadon, Iriya suspended between them. Haxer remembered where he was, helped Stark drop her into another flask and secure it.

"Two down." He puffed out a sigh and glanced back at Cha then down to her blood on his uniform and hands. To Thadon he said, "Your girlfriend has _a lot_ to frelling learn," and Thadon simply nodded. "Help him, Stark," Haxer huffed then dashed to Command.

He made it to find Shiv sitting calmly in the pilot's seat, her hand wrapped crudely, she ordering the _Vengeance_'_s _AI to quickly run through the ship's startup sequence. Haxer dropped into Miriya's seat, doing his best to keep an eye on the systems. A few minor ones shorted out and he rerouted. Outside Sun pulled what appeared to be a heavy charge from one of the dead troopers. She flung it toward the main doorway and retreated.

"Shiv – we don't have long." Haxer told her, biting back his first impulse.

"I am aware." She checked her board and nodded to herself. "Man the cannon – we are still tethered."

Hax slid to the weapons board and cut the tethers neatly. Outside suited troopers were starting to enter the hanger – and they had heavy mobile cannon. Hax targeted the charge Sun had tossed without a thought and destroyed the rest of the bay and any easy entrance to it. Behind them they heard the hatch cycle closed.

"Cha and Iriya are in stasis."

"The necessity to divert power was just that." A pause. "Your mastery of language is most impressive."

"I'm not apologizing." He dropped into the co-pilot's seat and ran a check. Not great. Ander was shouting in his head, diverting his attention and making it hard to concentrate. Shiv was trying her best with one hand.

"Can you fly?" Shiv asked him. "My left hand is currently useless." He sat a moment and assessed. His hands shook and Ander raged in his head. He thrust a finger against his forehead.

"No. I'm frelled up in here."

"You're relieved," a voice told him, "both of you."

Aeryn Sun stood in the doorway of the Command Deck.

"Tend to yourselves." She ordered. "I can fly this ship."

"You sure?" Haxer asked, forgetting what he knew of her in the cacophony of Ander's ranting.

"I can fly _anything_." She told him with utter assurance. She arched an eyebrow at them. "It's not like you have a choice."

Shiv stared at Aeryn with those unnerving orange eyes and then nodded once. She rose and Aeryn took her place. Haxer joined Shiv at the door. Before Shiv left she handed Sun a _Vengeance_ comm. Aeryn affixed it without comment.

"Use the AI. Follow the instructions it gives you."

"Why?" Aeryn asked, not objecting, just curious.

"It was planned." Shiv said pointedly. Aeryn simply nodded and the _Vengeance_ backed smoothly out of the smouldering bay and into open space.

"Your mental state?" Shiv asked the Decrypter as they proceeded aft.

He sent her a rueful grin.

"Aside from furious? Tenuous. I'm holding. Just do what you frelling have to when the time comes."

"Such is my custom."

"Shiv – I wish that was a joke."

"I do not possess a sense of humour," she informed him, drier than a desert, "as you are no doubt cognizant."

Over the intership comm, the AI reported several sensor locks. The Carrier had found them. Prowlers would soon be heading their way.

Aeryn tersely confirmed it. Thadon and Stark approached up the corridor. Stark had bandaged him as best he could.

Hax waggled a forefinger at Blade Mage.

"He has a sense of humour – sorta."

Shiv nodded at him.

"He is an aberration." Thadon just shook his head indulgently. "One I am beginning to …appreciate." Shiv admitted and looked away with a slight frown. She did not slow. She did not see the smile split Thadon's face. Stark told them he'd join Aeryn on Command and Shiv agreed. Once in the medbay, Shiv began to tend her damaged hand. Due to the regenerative abilities of Thantados, her hand would fix itself, her fingers would regrow but it would take time.

The AI reported that the Carrier was rapidly lighting up as sections returned in sequence to operability. Shiv inquired and Aeryn reported that the _Vengeance _was still very sluggish.

"_According to your AI,"_ Aeryn told them, "_we have engines and limited fire capability. No shields, no Shroud, stealth is offline."_

"The bastards fed an inverse inarion pulse through her systems. It's like trying to wake a Fadr Mule in the morning." Haxer added.

"_So we're limited to running."_ Aeryn confirmed.

"Pretty much." Haxer looked to Shiv then relented. Fine. So it _was_ necessary. He still wasn't going to apologize, however. Shiv looked back at him. Her orange eyes were calm and he both envied and hated her for it.

"Your assessment as to the pulse?" She asked him.

"An inarion pulse should clear itself in an half-an-arn. I could flush it from the system but that would leave us floating here. Not long under normal circumstances but far too long under these."

"Running it is." Shiv said with a raised eyebrow. She looked down at her hand. She was missing her pinkie finger and her ring finger was mangled beyond usefulness. She found a small cutter and severed the useless digit. If it hurt she did not show it. She re-wrapped it as they spoke.

"Stand by to deploy Crichton's 'surprise present' as he called it." Shiv told him. "Once it has been deployed, we will retreat to the wormhole and implement the next stage."

"Miriya's still on the Carrier." Haxer was looking everywhere but at the stasis chambers.

Shiv did not seem surprised. She flexed the remaining fingers. Serviceable if limited.

"That is not unexpected."

"We just leaving the Boss, too?"

"Such were his orders."

"And Sun?" Haxer indicated Command with a nod.

"Unexpected but necessary. For the moment."

Haxer finally looked at the flasks tucked into their alcoves.

"Cha's in stasis – she's …bad. If I lose her..." He looked at the dry blood on his hands. _Fuel for his rage_. Ander had gone silent but he knew that was only temporary.

"Chak'sa is indomitable." Shiv gave him a direct gaze. "She will not die. We will not permit it. _She_ will not permit it."

Hax sucked in a deep breath, held it a microt and expelled it.

"Go." Shiv ordered. "Prepare."

Haxer nodded and left to return to Command. Shiv then commed Sun.

"Officer Sun, put us directly over the centre dorsal of the Carrier and hold position. _Directly_ in the centre of this Carrier"

"_There are several Prowler pickets in the area. We won't have long."_

"We do not require 'long'."

"_On our way."_

Aeryn manoeuvred the _Vengeance _into position over the Carrier and waited, keeping an eye on the tracking arrays. So far no one was too near. That would change. _What,_ she wondered, _were they doing here, anyway?_

Haxer entered a microt after, sat heavily and quickly entered the calculations for the Impactor – the Carrier's size, density, material qualities - and when he finished, Shiv entered. He glared out the forward portal at the Carrier they were about to cause no end of woe.

_Goodbye, you ugly tralk. Be sure to take that frelling half-breed to Hezmana with you._

He glanced back down at his hands and then turned to Shiv, thrust his bloody hand before her eyes, pulled her own covered with Thadon's next to his, his voice cold.

"This is _important. _You _remember._"

Thadon started but Shiv merely calmly looked at Haxer's hand, at her own and finally his face. She nodded once and he seemed satisfied. Thadon sat back down.

Haxer hastened to the cargo bay, programmed the impact coordinates into Dar'shanne's Impactor then used the grapples to move it over the doors and waited. At Shiv's comm, he opened the doors and released the grapples. The Impactor dropped out of the ship, altered its trajectory slightly and then plummeted like a stone in high gravity.

The moment the Impactor left the _Vengeance_ Aeryn pulled away and headed into open space. The ship was beginning to respond and she exulted – silently – at being at the controls of such a powerful machine, impressed at its stated abilities. Whoever had modified this ship had made it intensely formidable - when it worked at full capacity, at any rate. Systems were coming online, albeit slower than she'd like. Her attention was diverted as the proximity detectors alerted her to approaching Prowlers. At the very edge of the screen she saw the unmistakable profile of Marauder. With a small smile, she put the _Vengeance_ on an intercept trajectory.


	17. Step 16: No Wildcards

"**WHY THE HELL WOULD I TRUST **_**YOU**_**?"**

John glared at his one-time would-be kidnapper. He'd ordered her to stay away from him, informing her that he knew of her hormones.

_Oh, _those_, _she'd said, _I can control those, I just chose not to. _She'd stepped close to prove it and he had to admit she'd been truthful. Still, he didn't need her anywhere near him. Damped down or not, they still _worked_, dammit. She was elbow-deep in his machine and he'd grudgingly begun to admire her abilities. She was personable, approachable and friendly and for once John knew it wasn't an act. As former Peacekeepers went, this woman was an enormous aberration.

"It would make _sense_, for one thing," Miriya told him, "right now _I'm_ the _only_ friend you've got."

"Some _friend_." John grumbled. "I remember a pulse pistol _in_ my _crotch_ and being handed over to _Scorpius_!"

"I wasn't myself then," Miriya frowned at a component, "and _I _didn't turn you over to _any_body. Wasn't the plan at all."

"Oh - and what exactly _had_ been 'the plan'?"

"To keep you _away_ from Scorpius, for one thing." Miriya huffed and aligned the component, began to flash-seal it into place. "I should have known – _especially_ after so much exposure - the other one would have been as equally damned _stubborn_!"

John had moved closer to watch her work. He admitted it was proving to be an education. He just had to limit _his_ exposure.

"So you're blaming _me_?" John was watching her over her shoulder as she finished. She reached up and he handed her an aligner without thinking.

"Who else? It was your fault." She finished and stood with a half-smile. "It's always a Crichton's fault."

John frowned and backed away. His chest felt constricted. He coughed but it didn't help.

"Is that what he calls himself? John Crichton?"

Miriya shrugged and searched through the stack of circuit wafers balanced beside her work area.

"That's what everyone else calls him. He's got a _lot_ of names out there."

"I'll just bet he does." John sat heavily and reached for his pain relief. Miriya chuckled.

"Did you know that there are some planets that have even incorporated him into their _religious_ mythos?" She chose a wafer and bent to insert it. "The D'voskol Mystics call him the 'Dimmer of Stars'. I rather like that one."

"Lovely." John's head throbbed and his cheek still burned.

"The Pl!k'tunig," Miriya said the name with a click of her tongue, "call him 'The Burning'. Curious, isn't it?"

"Fascinating." Dry. "Why are you here again?"

Miriya selected another wafer and bent to her task.

"Originally it was to try and figure out some way to turn this to my advantage." She stood and pointed to the base of her skull. He could see a dark red spot there. "Then they gave me no choice at all." She shrugged. "Sub-dermal micro-explosive. Work or die." She sniffed. "There's gratitude for you."

"I didn't know about that, Miriya. I didn't."

"Didn't say you did."

Ereel came to inspect her work and Miriya went silent but her attitude was pure insolence in the face of Ereel's officious bearing. When the Tech Captain had left earshot, Miriya rolled her eyes.

"_That's_ what they replace me with. No wonder they can't get anything done." She glanced back at him. "Scorpius won't honour any bargain, you know that."

"I know. Not why I'm doing this."

Miriya smile was knowing.

"To see if you can, huh? That's a tech trait if there ever was one."

John shook his head although some deep part of him agreed with her. Give him the resources and he would instantly become the most _powerful_ human being who had ever lived. He knew the dangers but he couldn't deny the allure.

"I'm not a tech. I'm a scientist." He puffed out a breath, trying to get the pressure in his chest to ease off. "On Earth _you'd_ be what we call an 'engineer'."

Miriya looked up and considered the word.

"'_Engineer'…_ sounds important."

"They keep the world turning," he told her, rising from his seat. He contemplated her for a moment. "Why did you _really_ come here, Miriya? The odds were good you could have gotten away clean."

"Clean away to _what_?" She answered with another question, her mood going sombre. "Piracy? All that 'contamination' and 'abomination' dren? On the run _forever_?" She scoffed. "I've never been considered a _person_, do you know that? I was created from other minds and awoke in a head that didn't belong to me." Her violet eyes went dark and her face hardened. "_Now_ it _does_." She glared back at him as if daring him to say something. "I want _more_."

John could have said a thousand things at that moment. But he knew better.

"So you and him… I asked this before, but _were_ you…?"

Miriya gazed at him for a moment and he could see her consider her answer.

"We were nothing." She replied. "But I liked it."

"Did he… did _he_ treat you like a person?" He wondered if he didn't step over some line but Miriya's smile was warm.

"You Crichtons are …unique."

"So I keep telling myself…" he muttered, then shook his head. "Are you finished yet?"

"Have you told Tight-ass over there," Miriya nodded in the direction of Ereel, "just what it is you're building here?"

"You think _you_ know what I'm building here?"

Miriya bent an eyebrow up at him. As she spoke she began pointing at various assemblies.

"Tier _Five_ transitional phase coils that are slaved to Fourth-Level Power splitters that run _directly through_ Hevex-class energy shunts. You've got _six_ separate kinds of directional feed arrays on this thing, all funnelled straight through four Carrier-grade fusion reactors that you're using as simple startup power…!"

"All _right_!" He waved her to silence, now seriously impressed. "Damn show-off!"

"Don't get me wrong," Miriya's smile broadened, "I can _guess_ what it _might_ do, but I'll be frezzed if I know what it _actually_ will." Her smile faded and she looked up at the thing. "Frankly, it scares the dren out of me." She stepped past him and gathered up the remaining circuit wafers and returned them to an equipment box. A thumb jerked over her shoulder at the Invertor. "Not that this thing will matter in the end."

"Why _won't_ it matter?" John was irked at her sudden dismissive outlook. Miriya thrust a hip at him and her smile returned as a smirk.

"Why do you _think_?"

* * *

**CRICHTON STEPPED OUT** onto the hull of the Carrier and paused, looking 'up' at the Earth rotating slowly 'above' him. His suit's comm picked up a report of a Vigilante leaving the Carrier and he smiled to himself. Some faith worked out after all. According to plan? Not quite. Close enough? Definitely. He aligned himself toward the Inverter and started walking, the immense hull of the Carrier arching away before him like a metal plain. Towers and sensors jutted from the plates, some stories tall. He wondered at the skill and ingenuity that could build such gigantic and powerful vessels and then just waste them on the futility of war.

Well, not this one. Not for much longer.

Halfway to his Impactor he looked up again and could see the black clouds of the Cannon's shots spreading.

Below it he knew a great many innocent people had died.

"_Just another rock,"_ he muttered to himself. A Crichton had vowed to save it.

Beneath his feet, the Carrier rumbled back to life.

* * *

**FAR BELOW CRICHTON,** John gazed on his creation with satisfaction. Miriya had finished the fabrication of the new circuit pathways for the Invertor. Whether he liked it or not, she'd proven both amazing adept and incredibly useful. He wondered absently if he shouldn't offer her some place on Earth, knowing her abilities could be extremely valuable… When Ereel questioned his slowdown, he explained without explaining _too_ much, what he'd needed, and save for minor secrets he would never divulge it was almost finished. As it stood, any use of it would annihilate both the vessel it was installed in and everything for light-years in every direction. Overlay that with the _hundreds_ Scorpius would no doubt have built…? Scorpius wanted a WMD. He'd got one. In _spades_. When he was safely away he'd 'give' Scorpius the key to activate it and John would use that to get his way, to save the day and his planet – and defeat a hated enemy with an utter finality.

Yes, it would be his _gift_ to both the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. Put one on every Carrier and let the war begin. He'd end it from long distance with a single shot and make the universe that much cleaner.

John felt like laughing aloud and rubbing his hands together like some old movie villain. His head was beginning to throb again with pain and he took another painkiller. His chest hurt ferociously and he cursed Sebacean 'medicine'.

Now he only had to convince Scorpius of his _sincerity_.

* * *

**TECH CAPTAIN EREEL CAOL** was as ambitious as the next Peacekeeper and despite her active dislike of the new arrival and her rather-too-good talents, she welcomed the distraction the tralk provided. Caught up in his obsession with his device and his disdain for herself personally he paid little attention to her comings and goings. This suited her and her orders. It also suited her own ambitions. She _would_ dutifully obey her orders, of course. That did not however mean that she wouldn't do a thing or two for herself and so she had done and secreted it away where it could be found in a hurry if necessary. Renaa had been a loyal lieutenant and aided Caol's ambitions – and no doubt a few of her own. No matter.

A tech burst into the room to report the Carrier's power was returning. She nodded to herself and rechecked her plan. She could see no flaws. '_Stealing fire_," he'd called it, but neither he nor Scorpius were gods, nor would they be.

But _goddesses_? She could believe in _those._


	18. Step 17: Work With What You Have

**THE CARRIER BECAME FRENETIC **when the power returned, comms flooding Command, reports flying, techs running pell-mell. Several systems overloaded from workarounds and hacked-together shunts, just adding to the chaos. Peacekeeper forces ground-side were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers; and after Scorpius had been informed of the escape of the pirate crew, the other Crichton and his attack on John, he had demoted several dozen personnel and ignored Braca's suggestion to recall any forces - in favour of sending the rest of their Prowlers and Marauders to commence full-on strafing and bombing runs.

Braca waited for his demotion but it didn't happen.

"_Scorpius_." John commed the Command.

"John." Scorpius looked up. "How are you doing this?"

"_I'm talkin' through your tech boss. I'm done."_

"Captain Ereel?" Scorpius asked. She responded almost instantly.

"_All my scans show it functioning, Scorpius. My teams agree. Your 'expert' agrees."_

"Well, John," Scorpius nodded to himself. "You have kept your side of the agreement."

"_You're damn right I did. Keep yours. Get your dogs the hell off my planet."_

Braca handed Scorpius a computer pad. Casualty rates and materiel losses. Another pad followed, this with a report on the Frag Cannons. They could not move on their own yet, but two could still fire.

"Only after I _know_ you've been sincere, John. Only after I _know_ it works."

"_What's the matter, Scorpy? Don't you believe your own techs?_ _You know what would happen if you quantum-sheared reality at right angles_?" Braca watched the half-breed. Scorpius yet retained his skeptical look, but his eyes held definite interest… almost excitement. His voice was perfectly calm when he asked,

"Come now, Crichton. There must be, as you would say, a 'catch'."

"_Ain't you the super-genius? Of course there's a catch. I don't give you the 'on-switch' until your scaly ass is far, far away from here."_ A pause. "_I'll give you one insight because you sure as hell aren't getting a demonstration _here – _Ereel here likes to toss the word 'theoretical' around, don't you, sweetheart?" _

"Ereel?" Scorpius inquired.

"_It _is _theoretically possible, Scorpius, but the amount of power required to do what he alleges would be…"_

"…siphoned from a wormhole." Scorpius cut her off, the answer dropping into his head. "Or a _wormhole itself_…"

"_Ugly _and _smart_," John smirked through the comm. "_Well?"_ John suddenly went into a coughing fit. When it stopped he said, "_Get off my planet and you can have it."_

"No, John. I don't think I will just yet." Scorpius told him, and no one was surprised by his answer. "Until I _see_ it work I simply cannot take your word for anything. After I subdue your planet, you will accompany us back to our side of the wormhole – and you will then demonstrate this grand invention of yours." He indicated that Braca was to follow him and started from the bridge. "Ereel, I am coming to inspect this device personally. Your troopers there are to restrain Crichton until I arrive."

"_You lying son of a bitch!"_ John roared over the comms, his rage then devolving into another spastic coughing session. Scorpius merely shook his head in mock pity.

"Necessity is all, John." Scorpius told him as he walked briskly through the hallways. "Even you can understand this. This is why you can't be trusted. A pity, but true." He waited a moment for some rejoinder but none came. "John?"

"_Scorpius!"_ Ereel's voice suddenly barked through his comm. "_Crichton has collapsed! We need medtechs here now!"_

Scorpius' brisk walk became a sudden run, Braca on his heels.

* * *

**THE MARAUDER HAD NO NAME**, only a callsign, but its crew had given it the informal title of 'Crusher'. They had been patrolling for any sign of any attack from the planet below into space against the Carrier but so far nothing had come. Reports told of increasing waves of resistance below, but the crew had confidence such was only temporary. Primitive barely-into-ballistic weapon technology, even cruder energy weapons and certainly no recognizable space-based offensive capabilities of any kind. Frankly, the patrol had long since edged into boring and seemed to be staying that way.

When the proximity alarm went off, they practically scrambled over one another to get to their stations and gaped at what they saw – a _Vigilante_ was on a _direct collision course _and being tailed by at least five Prowlers, who were shooting at it furiously. At the last moment, the Vigilante veered over the Marauder and the 'Crusher' was suddenly hammered by all that furious Prowler fire. Screaming into their comms and desperately trying to power the Marauder from their flight paths, 'Crusher' rolled over and took a Prowler moving too fast directly amidships, both ships exploding in a fireball that enveloped the Prowlers following, destroying one more and scattering the rest.

On the _Vengeance, _Aeryn nodded in satisfaction.

"Why did you do that?" Shiv asked her from the other pilot's chair.

"Exercise." Aeryn told her blandly. They had been in the way. Shiv regarded her then nodded.

"Proceed to the predetermined coordinates." She told her and Aeryn slewed the _Vengeance_ back on course. Shiv turned back to Haxer. "Prepare for deployment." He nodded and left Command.

"Can I safely assume," Aeryn asked her, "this is all according to a plan?"

"Crichton's plan, yes."

"Nice to see one working," Aeryn told her dryly, "for a change."

Despite herself, Shiv found herself becoming impressed by this woman.

* * *

**THE MONITOR HAD BEEN SWARMED** by the Prowler picket of Nerida Deman and had ignored them initially. It was not until they severely damaged one of its main sensor pallets that it decided that enough had been enough and destroyed them with an omnidirectional plasma burst. Repair routines kicked on but it knew it would take time. It was an immensely advanced machine, but it _was_ half the age of the planet it had watched all this time. It had not been designed for combat nor subterfuge and had undergone more activity in this cycle than any in its history. The H'romni invasion of this system approximately one hundred million rotations ago had been the last time it had approached anything resembling combat. A "locust" species, the H'romni travelled from system to system, stripping each of any useable resource before moving on. They lived in immense 'world ships', vessels the size of continents.

They moved on quickly after the Monitor destroyed one of their vessels in a brief exchange. They had stripped a few of the largest gas giant's moon of several monitoring and mining stations of the U'leem and the Vrodanni but the Monitor had done nothing. Those stations had been automated and harmless. Only its 'agreement' had restrained it so far.

It registered an approaching vessel, scanned it and recognized it as the Vigilante. A quick check of its chronometer and it did as requested earlier. The Vigilante had been a part of the request.

The Vigilante roared past it, heading deeper in-system. Its flight pattern became erratic for a moment as it appeared to eject something and then levelled out.

The Monitor waited all of another 2.2 seconds and then opened the wormhole.


	19. Step 18: Dealing From The Bottom

**CRICHTON HAD MADE HIMSELF COMFORTABLE** a few motras from the Impactor. Directly below him – thanks to Haxer and his purloined data expertise, Crichton knew that from top to bottom of this Carrier were heavy reactors that fed each of the decks. They were set every half-kilometre. They were also massive blind spots and he'd chosen his current position with care. The Impactor would hammer through each and split this beast neatly in half. He'd set the timer and now was waiting, watching the blue Earth rotate above, feeling calm and relaxed. It'd been a helluva last couple of days but things would soon sort themselves out. He laughed quietly and heard the crackling trilled signal from the _Vengeance _that things were proceeding.

_Yo, Harve_, he tried again to continued silence, _you there? _Rooting around Harvey's usual spots netted him nothing. If Harvey _was_ hiding he was doing a damn fine job of it. It felt odd to be alone in his own head.

A light from the Impactor distracted him. Last tier of first stage activation. After fourth stage the Impactor couldn't be stopped.

Crichton had no intention of stopping anything. If he felt like it, however, he could skip all that and just detonate the damn thing whenever he liked. He took a deep breath to centre himself and closed his eyes, listened to the blood pulse through his ears and his own heartbeat.

_Like one on a lonely road, doth walk in fear and dread,_ he thought, counting the dark swirls against the inside of his eyelids.

"I'll be glad to be done," he said aloud.

The Impactor lit with the second stage.

* * *

**THE MEDTECHS HAD RUSHED** John to the medical facility so recently vacated by the pirates and were working feverishly. Scorpius had remained behind to glare at the device John had left for him.

"It was operating only a hundred microts ago," Ereel assured him. The Invertor was now dark and silent. Breannados tried fading into the background, but Scorpius saw her.

"Did you do something?" He accused. Ereel shook her head.

"She had no means, Scorpius."

Scorpius glowered at the ex-Subvertor and waved at the troopers.

"Get her out." He told them. "Confine her."

"He inputted specifications into the computer, did he not?" Scorpius demanded, promptly forgetting Miriya ever existed as the troopers marched her away. He had more pressing concerns and missed the small smile on her face. Ereel nodded.

"He called it an 'end user agreement', whatever that means." She had the specs instantly displayed and Scorpius studied them intensely and cursed to himself. There was not much to his 'instructions' – many, many gaps remained but Scorpius could see that this was so near everything he'd wanted – and John had left a deliberate and readily-identifiable – to Scorpius, at any rate – significant and rather glaring gap in the device's design. He'd been truthful after all. His 'on-switch'? Without knowing what it was, the device could _not_ be activated. Everything Scorpius could see that made sense to him said that any other method than the one hinted at would fail catastrophically.

_To be this close…!_

Braca watched Scorpius' agitation rise as he circled the device. To Braca, it did not look that impressive but frankly neither had Scorpius on first viewing. Braca had long since learned never to judge on appearances and also knew better than to interrupt and when a tech waved him over he left him to it.

"What is it?" Braca snapped, fending off five others following the first, three pads under his arm_. Captaincy was more than just prestige and a new uniform, Miklo_, he reminded himself. No matter how big a pain in the eema the minutiae could be.

"It's the wormhole, sir. Scanners just reported massive fluctuations at its event horizon."

"Which means?" Braca glanced back at Scorpius.

"It's _opening_, sir, and more."

Braca looked at her readings then at the visual scans contained on the pad.

Then he slowly turned, disbelief stamped on his features and in every movement.

"_Scorpius….?"_

Scorpius turned and Braca ordered the vid-feed diverted to their location. Everyone in the room gaped.

A fleet of large and heavily armed starships was pouring from the wormhole.

* * *

**ON MOYA AND TALYN** mouths had also dropped open.

"What in the blue end of Hezmana?!" Chiana had yelled when she saw the vessels. Both Leviathans confirmed their reality.

"_They're all… pirate vessels_." Crais informed them from a 'picture-in-picture' on the forward portal.

"_Confirmed,´ _Pilot agreed. "_Moya's databases recognize several."_

"I wouldn't have supposed he knew quite so many," Koiban said, watching the ships approaching.

"Huh? Who?" Rygel asked.

"Crichton, of course."

"_I count sixty-five ships. In the centre is the Capital ship of one __Reihna Karadandidos_," Pilot pointed out, "_called the _Red Thorn_." _The view panned left. "_That is the _To The Farthest Star, _flagship of Ovid Marlane Dar'shanne, who is rather notorious according to my sources."_

"I hereby resolve never to ever, _ever_ underestimate John again." D'Argo intoned from the navigation station.

"_Shah_," Chiana agreed, her grin almost reaching past her face. She plunked herself down on the Ops table with a relieved huff. "We're gonna win."

Pilot interrupted with a communication on a tightbeam channel. It was from the _Vengeance_ and it was a textual communiqué. Pilot routed it to his Captain. D'Argo read it and then passed it to Crais with a grim set to his face. Crais read it, nodded and vanished from the portal. D'Argo indicated they were all to follow him.

"Hold that thought," D'Argo told his crew as they dashed from Command, "we're not done yet."


	20. Step 19: Insist On Your Own Dice

**SCORPIUS** was hurrying to Command when a call from the medbay below stopped him in tracks.

"Say that _again_," he demanded.

"_Crichton is _dead_, sir."_

"How?"

"_We don't know, sir. We can't find anything in his system and none of his wounds were enough to kill him."_

"Incompetents! I need him _alive_!" Scorpius insisted, feeling his dream now so close slipping from his fingers.

"_Regeneration is not possible, sir. There seems to be some kind of chemical stasis coating his cerebral organ. Standard revision therapies won't work."_

It was all Scorpius could do not to lash out. The machine _in his grasp_. Non-functional and without coherent plans as to its construction it could take _cycles_ to back-engineer it! His one sure resource dead and his brain inaccessible! He could feel his cooling rods beginning to strain and struggled to get a grip on himself. Nothing was impossible until every avenue had been explored. It would just be a matter of… of course.

The _pirate_.

"Scorpius!" Braca's voice cut through his concentration.

"Put Crichton in stasis and rig his flask for storage!" He ordered the medtechs. "Braca… this had better be…!" Scorpius started striding forward again, Braca still on his heels.

"Tactical reports that the incoming ships are heavily armed. They could do considerable damage in our present state."

"We have barriers, do we not?"

"Uh, _no,_ sir. We've been diverting resources to repairs of our offensive capabilities and…"

Scorpius stopped and Braca could see a wisp of blue smoke escape from the side of the half-breed's head.

"I made you _Captain_ for a reason, did I not?"

Braca had an answer for that as well.

"All Prowlers and Marauders are currently engaged planetside, Scorpius, as per _your_ orders. Our space-based ones are not responding to orders and have been presumed destroyed. That fleet - Tactical reports that it's all unsanctioned vessels – are definitely _pirates_. We have identified Karadandidos' Capital and Dar'shanne's dreadnought. At current count there are sixty-five ships. Most are mid-class cruiser sized. They moving on an intercept with us at vector Velka 9. Without mobile Frag Cannon…"

"_Redouble_ all efforts to repair them." Scorpius glowered at Braca. Moving the Carrier itself was not viable in such a situation. More smoke was escaping from the side of his head. "_Kill_ the techs if you must to do it, use them all but _fix those Cannon_!" Scorpius started walking again. "Recall the Prowlers and Marauders from Earth. They are to instantly engage that so-called fleet! Our ground forces will hold until I say otherwise. Call Froy to attend me!"

He and Braca entered Command. On the huge screen before them hung the pirate fleet with a swirling wormhole behind it. The ships of that fleet were spreading out.

"All secondary defensive and offensive weapon platforms are responding, sir!" A tech told Braca as he marched in. Scorpius nodded behind him. A few moments later, Froy had arrived with her kit. Scorpius sat and she began maintenance on his cooling rods.

"We are now on total war alert!" Braca ordered. "We are also under Code _Illcha_ III emergency conditions! _All_ non-essential operational techs to the Frag Cannon repair teams! The instant they are repaired sufficiently we attack!"

All around them techs scrambled. Braca nodded with satisfaction and turned to Scorpius just as a blast of harsh static sizzled through Command. Everyone could also hear it through their personal comms.

"What in…?" Braca looked to a tech who looked as confused as he was – and another moment later a calm voice filled the entire Carrier.

"_Scorpius… what do you think so far? Impressive or what?"_

"Find where that's coming from!" Braca ordered.

"It's the other one." Scorpius stood, his cooling apparatus still ejected.

"_You like to think this is all a great game with you playing everyone like pawns, so… all right. A game." _A pause. "_Your move."_

The comm cut out and a tech confirmed it.

"Well?" Scorpius demanded instantly. "Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, sir – he must be in a sensor blindspot."

Braca stepped forward.

"Release seeker drones! Find him and stop him! Now!" Braca turned to Scorpius. "Can we believe him, Sir? Our position does seem… somewhat less than advantageous at this point."

Scorpius was silent and Braca could see his mind turning over. Tech Captain Ereel entered command and walked directly to Scorpius, halted and leaned in to whisper something in his ear. Scorpius jerked his head up and said something back Braca couldn't hear but to which Ereel nodded. Looks were exchanged on Command, many eyes turning to Scorpius. Froy calmly finished installing his new rods and closed the cooling unit. Scorpius smiled his death's-head smile.

"_Seems_, Braca." Scorpius told him at last with a new seeming self-assurance. Ereel clasped her hands behind her back and waited. "_Two_ Crichtons. Each equal and identical said the data." He turned his smile to the Captain, something Braca was never really happy to see. "How is our power?"

Braca turned to a tech.

"All power restored, Sir." The tech said. "There are some dead areas, but…" the tech was diverted by another report. "Something odd about that fleet, sir," the tech continued, "they are all in perfect formation. Not a single one has broken that formation or altered its place in the swarm. We also can't scan into them, but all sensors say they're real."

Scorpius knew of Karadandidos and Dar'shanne. Neither had patience, neither had such discipline and neither would ever be at anyone's – not even Crichton's - beck and command. There was no loot to be had at this backward world. What could he have promised them to have them launch such a foolhardy venture?

'_A game'_, Crichton had called it, but now it seemed some of the game pieces were back on his side of the board. _Very well._ _My move._

"Our pulse wave repeater system?" Scorpius asked her. "Has it been damaged?"

"No, sir."

"Well, Braca… there is your answer to our shielding worries. Activate the wave repeaters and send a triverteron pulse through the cycling array until I say cease. Then flip the charge and redirect it through our shunts. Reroute reactor power from the lower tiers to do it if necessary. Tech Captain, you are in command of that effort. See me when this is over."

"Thank you, Scorpius." Ereel saluted and marched smartly out.

"Sir," Braca interjected, "I'm afraid I don't see how…."

"They are designed to shunt energy _away_ from this vessel, Braca – specifically the rather intense energy inside a wormhole. A few paltry pulse cannon will be nothing against a triverteron pulse infusing our hull. I was taken off guard. That will not happen again."

"Sir," a tech inquired, "flipping that pulse will also depolarize the hull."

"So it will. It will also doubtless generate a rather massive static discharge, so warn any of our ships away when we initiate as it. Recall any of our troopers who may yet be on the ship's hull as it will disrupt their suits as well. We wouldn't wish any …incidents."

Scorpius looked to Braca. In moments, the pirate Crichton and his machinations would be just a footnote in the day as the charge on the Carrier reached him. Scorpius would collect the man from space and preserve him. That Crichton's brain would certainly yield its secrets once appropriately rendered. The other he would keep as a trophy, to remind himself that _this_ was the day victory over the Scarrans truly began. Earth and its system would be annexed into the Influence and its people quarantined. Humans were certainly interesting and billions of them could prove useful. Who knew what other secrets their simple brains could conceal?

Outside, his squadrons of Prowlers and Marauders were assembling and he ordered them to attack. He would soon see the true mettle of Crichton's allies. The problem with pirates is that you could never trust a single one.

"Wouldn't you agree, Captain?"

Braca suddenly smiled.

"Oh, indeed, sir. Initiating repeater sequence… _now."  
_

* * *

**CRICHTON WATCHED** the Prowlers flash by as they streaked toward the area of the wormhole and his fleet. He tipped his metaphorical hat to Haxer and old friends and waited for the fireworks. Surprises, he knew, were to be had all round.

In the distance a faint copper-coloured glow rose from below the 'horizon' of the Carrier. What scans he could make with his suit told him that it radiated _from_ the Carrier. Crichton had wondered when Scorpius would finally get around to using his repeater arrays. In the half-arn since he'd thrown down his challenge, Crichton had explored the area around his site and again found himself impressed at the skill it had taken to construct so mighty a vessel. Satisfied he'd sat and watched the sky. At length he rose and unhurriedly went to his Impactor, his magnetic boots clicking through his suit. When one slipped he smiled. He'd reached the Impactor as both boots lost contact and he wedged a foot under its latching strut to keep himself down. Fifty microts later, his suit registered a massive static charge building across the hull and estimated he had about two hundred microts more before the main charge reached him. He breathed calmly and waited.

_Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. _Crichton shook his head. _We are what we are and it's never enough._

His comm crackled.

_Here it comes.  
_

* * *

**THE PROWLERS AND MARAUDERS ENGAGED** the pirates darting among them and firing furiously. A smaller pirate ship the shape of a sword slashed with red broke from the main fleet and attacked the first of the Prowlers to arrive, blowing it apart. A cruiser-sized ship, flat, grey and bristling with cannon also dropped from the formation, ploughing through a squad of Marauders, destroying several before a half-dozen Prowlers chased it off. Several pirate vessels broke off and ran and the Prowlers pursued. The rest of the Fleet broke apart and engaged, yet their fire seemed to have little effect. A beam from the _Red Thorn_ passed directly _through_ a Marauder with no damage, although a missile from the sword-shaped ship blew its engines and sent it careening away. A Prowler dove at a smaller ship and seemed to pass _into_ it before suddenly exploding. The pirates moved and dodged, some running for Earth and some for the Carrier, always with Peacekeepers pursuing. Shots were exchanged but always seemed to miss.

Much later, many of the surviving Peacekeeper pilots would give grudging credit where it was due.


	21. Step 20: Trust No One

**SCORPIUS' SMILE** was beginning to disconcert many about him, most never having seen the half-breed do so. After a titanic effort, with over half the ship's techs slaving over them and some collapsing from the strain, a Hammonside Frag Cannon was now moving on its track, swinging around to target the Earth below. Braca reported that the Treblinside was position to fire at the pirates and Scorpius nodded that he was to do so.

_Fate could be handled_, Scorpius told himself, _with foresight and diligence. _He watched the monitors, saw the pirate fleet break apart due to his counterattack, his ships now charging through their ranks. The Frag Cannon discharged and he watched the charge tear through that so-called fleet. _And raw power, of course._

It had been a fool's errand to think such scum could match professional Peacekeepers. Yet, there was one last thing to do and he knew it should have been beneath him but he couldn't resist. He ordered a channel open.

"Crichton," he inquired, "still there?"

"_Scorpius_," came the cool voice. It muted Scorpius' pleasure to hear not a trace of stress in it. "_Nice work_."

"You think so?"

"_Absolutely. Always prepared, I see."_

"Your fleet won't last long against our forces, nor our Frag Cannon."

"_Compliments to the techs."_ Crichton told him, his voice still even. "_Helluva job."_

"You can surrender now, if you like. Or I continue destroying cities below."

"_You're an ambitious sort, I see."_

"This game is over and I have won. You - !"

"_I looked and beheld the _Arusha eli Fadii_,"_ Crichton suddenly intoned, interrupting like a serious and stern preacher at a pulpit, "'_The One With Two Faces'"._

Scorpius started and then just shook his head. Whatever the human was attempting would not work.

"I see you are lost to reason. Braca, stand by on the Hammonside Cannon…"

"_The Maiden Darkness at his side, in one hand he held the Destined Fate, in the other the Chaos of Love. I was fearful and averted my eyes." _Crichton continued, unheeding. '_Nay,' _Arusha eli Fadii _said in a voice like a cold thunder. 'Look upon me and remember.'"_

"What's he doing?" Braca wondered. Scorpius found the recital inexplicably irritating.

"_Without warning, he clapped his hands together and a great roar filled the heavens, the silver light of a million stars exploded in agony." _Crichton laughed softly. "_Thus I undo the Gods.' He said. 'Thus I align the Universe.'"_

"I _will_ destroy your planet!" Scorpius hissed.

"_Scorpius… how was your history in school? That was from Amiika 'The Prophet of Irrationalities'; Suvra 19:12-23, The N'sharrasti Ek'sm Book of… well, _me_. Or so they said." _Another short chuckle.

"You're _mad_." Scorpius ventured. "Can you not grasp…"

"_It is the black of the grave and the maw of the endless Night that stretches into Forever above us. He walks deep inside that night. He carries it like a banner - for it is the cloak of his beloved, the Maiden Darkness." _Crichton continued as if he'd not heard. "_No need to genuflect or offer up prayers. I never listen."_

"As I said, I have won your game!" Scorpius tried again. "You are finished."

"_What's any man want, I ask you? The basics? A comfy car, a neat house, a shiny wife and shinier kids? A dog that can do his taxes and enough money to subvert the American Dream without getting caught_?" A pause. "_Playing the game, though…"_

"You've lost. You have nothing left but bluster and bluff." Scorpius asserted. "All a Crichton ever has. I have the Earth under siege and can still destroy much of its surface. Between our Cannon and fighters, we can handle your little fleet."

"_Yeah, well, I figured they wouldn't intimidate you overmuch,"_ Crichton told him. "_Then they weren't meant to do anything but distract you anyway. All those attack craft suddenly so far away. No air support down below." _Another chuckle. "_The A-10 Warthogs fly over… won't be pretty."_

The main screen suddenly changed to a closeup of the pirate's face and one cold blue eye cast a baleful gaze over Command. How he had infiltrated their systems to such an extent no one could say.

"I _know_ exactly _what kind of shape you're in_."

"Do you now?" Scorpius cocked his head at the image on the screen, his face unreadable. "You seem rather confident." His own confidence was starting to fray at the edges.

A lopsided smile creased Crichton's face.

"_If my timing was right – and I see no reason why it wasn't - John's kicked off this mortal coil and you_ _have _nothing. _Oh, you've got a rig, but it very likely doesn't work_."

His one eye seemed to look around the Command. The screen zoomed out to show his Impactor behind him. Scorpius' eyes narrowed as he recognized it. It had two bright lights flashing on it. Everyone on Command gaped. Someone gasped. Second stage to detonation.

"_How's _this_ for confidence?"_

"It will be no victory." Scorpius stated, calm and collected. A tech out of sight of Crichton signalled that the static charge was eighty microts from full coverage. Seeker drones had found him and were locked on. They would reach the human first. The Impactor then flashed a third light. First tier third stage implementation. There was still time to stop the device. "I can destroy half your planet before you can do anything with that. You have your _ideals_, Crichton. You won't kill innocents. You're _bluffing_."

"_You still think this is about winning, Scorpius." _He shook his head in mock pity.

Scorpius blinked. The pirate was _too_ casual, his manner too sure. _What was he missing_? It was all a bluff. It had to be. Behind the pirate, Scorpius could see the seeker drones flash, bearing down.

"_It's about what we know and what we _think _we know,"_ Crichton continued, "_It's the simple difference between facts and supposition_, _the hypothetical and the actual_. _You're so busy trying to make everyone dance to your tune you can no longer hear the music." _Crichton reached down and casually hit a switch on the side of the Impactor. The fourth stage light shone. "_Peacekeepers __think only of victory or defeat. They offer no choices but their way or death. I understand now that it's not important. Defeat, victory – nothing."_

A tech signalled. _Ten microts._

Scorpius opened his mouth but Crichton wasn't finished. His smile had faded and his voice sounded tired.

"I'm _not trying_ _to win."_

His finger hit the final key.

The screen went black.

The Carrier shook.


	22. Step 21: Mark Your Cards

"**HOLY FROKKING **_**FRELL**_**."**

The _Vengeance _had been finally restored to full functionality and had been aiding the pirate fleet against the Prowlers when the AI reported the intense and sudden flash of high energy from the Carrier. All able to gawked at the readings scrolling across the forward display.

"He used it." Haxer uttered with a grating satisfaction and a savage smile. "_He frelling used it_!"

"What?" Aeryn inquired, still twisting the Vigilante after a Prowler as the autocannon locked on and blew it away. A heavy pirate frigate shaped like a sword and flat grey cruiser-class ship flanked her as she wove through the fleet. "What did he use?"

"A K'shrohn Orbital Impactor." Shiv told her. Although she had not doubted his resolve, Shiv found herself faintly surprised that he'd actually used it. "That Carrier will soon be very dead."

Aeryn was about to protest that there were tens of thousands of people on that ship and then remembered how many Scorpius had killed firing on Earth.

"_John's still on that Carrier_!" She suddenly flung the _Vengeance_ toward the great vessel but a blade had somehow appeared under her chin.

"You will continue as you were until otherwise instructed." Shiv's voice was flat and dangerous.

"Or you'll _kill_ me? _I'm_ the _only_ one in shape to fly this thing – and avoid those Prowlers still out there." Aeryn's eyes held no fear, only defiance. Shiv's respect for her grew another notch.

"Shiv," Haxer said from his chair, "it doesn't frelling _matter_ anymore. The Boss won. They're not a threat much longer."

Shiv held Aeryn's gaze for a microt longer and then retracted her blade with a curt nod.

"You are correct. You may alter course to the Carrier. We will go to full stealth," she looked back at Haxer, "as you said, it no longer matters, but caution is warranted regardless." Shiv returned to her seat, reached for the comm system. "Captain Crais, are you there?"

Crais' face appeared on the main screen. Aeryn decided not to be surprised by anything else that happened today.

"_We are. We have scanned the Carrier and know what has happened."_

D'Argo's voice cut in. _Of course he's involved,_ Aeryn thought. _They all are. Of course._

"_The Prowlers and Marauders will know soon enough, as well."_

"It is time to drop the masquerade," Shiv told them as she nodded to Haxer, who keyed in a series of commands on the console before him.

All around them, the pirate fleet _vanished. _They shimmered and shuddered and faded into a swarm of small points of light.

The two ships flanking the Vigilante were revealed to have been _Talyn_ and _Lo'lhaa_. Aeryn had enough self-possession to peel free of the fading 'ships' as they went, _Talyn_ and _Lo'lhaa_ staying at her side.

"Hologram-projecting drones and a few mines." Haxer told her questioning look. "The mythic fleet of Ainye Mirada Synwynd, redressed for our purposes! Each drone programmed to send sensor data of any ship it projects. Unless you hide in one – like they did." He jabbed a thumb at the viewscreen and the two real ships out there. "Hate to lose it."

"_I've asked Moya to retrieve it once the Prowlers clear the area,_" D'Argo told him over the now-open comms.

"Thank you." Shiv said, eying the seemingly stunned Sun. "Officer Sun."

Aeryn blinked and shook her head. Little clues were dropping into her head. Things he'd said and not said. A small smile creased her face. In a way, he'd told them all ahead of time.

"There will be time for the personnel of that Carrier to evacuate." Shiv told her. "Doubtless your Crichton will be among them and the attack craft will have more to do than worry about us."

Aeryn looked around the Command, at the familiar faces on the viewscreen. Her mind was reeling with the possibilities. Automatically she set the controls. Shiv was right. Somehow they'd find him. She found her thoughts on the other one though, the one who'd changed absolutely _everything_ now.

_He kept his promise…  
_

* * *

**MIRIYA BREANNADOS** was a woman who understood opportunity. When the Carrier shook all around her she was buffeted as if a wave had rushed up the corridor and it was a wave she rode to escape her escort. Voices began to shout and alarms rang out. Miriya tucked herself out of sight and considered. _Crichton. Had to be_. She also knew she had to get out. Fast. She scrambled down a side corridor, her guard having long since ceasing to care about her and found a small terminal. A few quick commands and she discovered something that brought a fleeting smile to her face. It wasn't optimal, but it was a way out. She only had to get there and hope that the ship didn't kill her before she could.


	23. Step 22: There is No Step 22

**CRICHTON PANTED IN THE LIFT.** He'd re-entered the Carrier the way he'd initially left it, through an emergency hatchway, just barely dodging the initial burst of the Impactor that had torn open his suit and given him a rather few anxious moments as air had gushed out and he'd almost been blown off the hull by the explosive attack of the seekers.

In the hi-speed lift he shed his damaged spacesuit. He'd taken some physical damage as well, feeling a few burns on his side and some investigation had netted him bloody fingers. Nothing felt remotely life-threatening. He contemplated the great cacophony all around him as he descended, the great beast of a ship was shuddering in its death throes, shaking the lift and shoving him from wall to wall as reactor after reactor was split and hammered, imploding in on itself as the Impactor drove itself through the Carrier. He exited the lift to chaos and smoke and fire, bodies rushing, alarms screaming, orders blaring to get to escape craft.

He wondered why they were in such a hurry. He had nothing against _them_. He'd given _them_ plenty of time.

No one paid any attention to the Carrier's destroyer as he dodged and ducked his way to the main medbay and his goal.

There'd been only one destination for John. Scorpius wasn't about to give up his prize, not even in death.

Across the room, the floor abruptly cracked wide with a howl of fire gushing up, splitting the room in two and Crichton had to leap and roll to avoid being flash-cooked. He bounced against the body of a dead tech and slammed against the far wall. He contemplated the green-blue flame that rolled from the tear like a liquid, watching it climb and slither-hiss through the room, fascinated by it as he climbed to his feet. It licked the floor almost to his boots and recoiled back. Crichton just nodded once as it ebbed away.

_Can't burn a shadow,_ he told it in his head, _can't melt the dark._

He was feeling preternaturally calm even though he knew he was far from finished. He found John's stasis flask unattended although someone had very kindly locked it into a suspensor grid for easy transport. He activated a small holoscreen. John's face hovered over the flask. The skin had a mottled copper and blue appearance, the slash on his cheek standing out a stark white.

"Even after all this," he muttered, "you still frelling win." He checked the power on both the flask and suspensor. Both good. "Bastard."

A deck up and two over had the escape pods for the med-wing. Another exit just up from him would do. He began to push the flask in its direction.

A shot sizzled past his head and he halted and unhurriedly turned. On the other side of that blazing chasm he saw _Scorpius_, beside him two heavily armed troopers. One raised his rifle to fire again but Scorpius shoved the barrel down. For long moments each simply stood and locked eyes.

"What you've _done_…!" Scorpius said finally over the sibilant hiss of fire. "You've condemned uncountable billions to…"

"Life." Crichton's voice was surprisingly clear in the crackle of the room. Scorpius' eyes narrowed. "I've damned them to living."

"The _Scarrans_ will…!"

"Or won't. Depending. Never go to bed angry."

Scorpius suddenly ordered the two troopers away, to evacuate. Both ran with alacrity. The room shook all around them.

Inexplicably Scorpius _saluted_ the pirate, a Peacekeeper salute that made Crichton nod. A salute of equals.

"It's _not_ about winning, John." Scorpius told him, the name a kind of vindication even if Crichton didn't believe it any longer. "Until it _is_."

Scorpius smiled his death's-head smile.

"I am defeated," he told the pirate, "but I am rarely beaten."

Scorpius turned and vanished just as a huge gust of fire rolled through his side of the room.

After what seemed like far too long, Crichton finally wrestled the stasis pod through the bedlam and reached his goal. The room of escape pods was both surprisingly intact and quiet and he wasted no more time securing John. He set the pod to fly in a direction away from all the others, the beacon he re-tuned to something those who would be searching would recognize. It took him a moment to remember it.

Crichton counted to three in his head and hit the release. The pod ejected into space and soon vanished from sight.

He found a dark corner and sat himself down with a groan and a puff of breath. For all the sound and fury beyond, only the occasional rumble through the floor or sparking power junction reminded him of the destruction burning its way down through the Carrier. It would take slightly longer for it to reach here. To his left an open locker revealed more suits, these the heavier armored ones he favoured hanging in chargers and he nodded wearily in their direction. It was not the miracle as it might have first appeared. This was an emergency exit. The pods wouldn't hold everyone in the section.

Several techs broke abruptly into the room and scrambled for the remaining escape pods. Crichton simply watched them from his shadows. His body felt as if it were made of stone. The last pods ejected, gusts of air following them before the auto-hatches closed and Crichton was once again alone. A large rumble approached through the floor and conduits blew as it approached. One energy coil broke free from the wall and whipped about, finally jamming itself against the only door and flash-welding it shut. It grumbled and sparked against the door and then fizzled out. He nodded at it as if it too had been expected.

Crichton sighed a sigh that felt as if it had actual weight and picked himself up. He proceeded to dress himself in a spacesuit as the floor started to crack at the edges of the room.

_Until it is_, he thought, _defeated but rarely beaten. Must be nice._

He clicked the helmet down and it activated, sealed him in. He'd stepped into the empty rack of one of the escape pods and found the manual release for the hatch. The outgassing of atmosphere _should_ throw him far enough from the Carrier. He pulled the release.

The hatch didn't budge.

In the room behind him he heard a large metallic groan. A quick thrust of his head out of the tube showed him the wall _bowing in_, the room being crushed by some outside force. The end of the tube began to buckle and he backed up. Another pull on the release and he saw a slice of sky beyond. Out-rushing air slammed him against the hatch and he fought back to the release and another harder pull did nothing. Crichton allowed himself to be shoved against the hatch again and grabbed the edge of the hatch and pulled, planting his feet against the wall and adding the actuators in the suit for extra power. Fire began gouting down the tube and he pulled with all his strength, black spots dancing before his eyes from the effort.

Just as the hatch seemed to give a blast hit him like a pile-driving hammer and smashed him into the blackness beyond.


	24. Step 23: Know When To Say When

**THE **_**VENGEANCE**_ approached the Carrier in full stealth and got an unrestricted view of the destruction. The great vessel was literally being cracked open, splitting through the centre, stabbed by the ferocious power of the Impactor. All around it pods were fleeing, some already leaving fiery trails in Earth's atmosphere. On the forward screen, an interior scan of the Carrier showed the path of destruction.

_It's a piece of work_, Aeryn thought_, he aimed it straight through the least habitable area of the ship._

"They should get an interesting reception," Haxer commented as he watched his tracking arrays.

"It won't be friendly," Aeryn agreed. The _Vengeance's _AI counted pods and Aeryn did a few calculations in her head. The Carrier would take time to split open. Most of the crew could get away. She was mightily impressed. She returned to watching the forward scanners. An instinct told her she'd know it when she saw it.

_There._ One pod, rolling away from the Carrier, away from Earth. She scanned for a signal and smiled.

A series of beeps and boops in a musical tone.

"_That's_ not a standard beacon." Haxer noted.

"It's called the '_1812 Overture'_," Aeryn told him. "It's _John_."

Haxer abruptly stood and said, "I'll go standby on the grapples," then halted just as abruptly in the door, slapping both hands to the frame, body rigid and shaking.

"Haxer?" Shiv inquired. Hax shook his head and growled something inarticulate.

"I'm _fine_," he replied with a growl after a tense moment and proceeded aft.

"Is he all right?" Aeryn asked, watching him leave. "Should we be concerned?"

"_We_ are concerned." Shiv's cold voice turned her back around. "_You _will mind your course."

Aeryn sat back and checked the controls. Right. She'd almost forgotten that she was the outsider here and not actually welcome. She matched course and speed with the pod and they were quickly over it.

"_The pod has been retrieved,"_ Thadon's voice came back through the comm. Shiv acknowledged, unmoved that Haxer had not been the one to report. "_Haxer is… indisposed_."

"You will see to him." Shiv told her would-be paramour.

"_Of course. I should tell you the pod contains a stasis flask._" There was a moment's hesitation. "_The occupant is deceased."_

Aeryn's insides froze as Shiv turned to look at her. The Blade Maiden said nothing.

"Stark," Aeryn commed, her voice flat, "would you please check for me?"

Time seemed to slow and scrape across her nerves as she waited for the Stykera to reply.

"_I'm sorry, Aeryn. It's true."_

"Thank you, Stark." Aeryn turned the _Vengeance_ toward Earth. "Please stay with him."

"Officer Sun," Shiv began but Aeryn cut her off.

"_He_ did this. He killed John."

Shiv nodded once.

"If he thought it necessary."

Aeryn's grey eyes were steely.

"_Necessary_?!"

Shiv matched the steel in Aeryn's grey with her fire eyes. Her voice was neutral.

"_Was_ it necessary?"

Aeryn blinked. That thought hadn't occurred to her.

"You have served your purpose." Shiv told her. "We will return you to your planet. You may lay in a course." Shiv raised her injured hand. The two missing fingers were already half-grown. They would be sufficient.

Aeryn set her teeth and knew protesting would be futile. What could she say? Earth was safe, Scorpius was defeated and…

…John was dead. They had always known that it could come down to this, but it didn't make it any less painful.

The Vigilante and the woman across from her felt suddenly _alien _and everything around her flat and empty.

Aeryn set her teeth and got an iron grip on herself. There was still work to do.

Without another word, Aeryn altered course for Earth and left the stars behind.

* * *

**THE MONITOR** had calculated the outcomes and compared the reality to its virtual scenarios. For all intents and purposes the situation had been concluded satisfactorily and the Monitor began to turn its subroutines to repairs and protocols to closing the wormhole. Debris from the battle – mostly the attack craft vectors - had been and was still drifting into the event horizon and being shredded and some of that debris as yet contained living beings. The Monitor saw no reason to allow to be destroyed that which caused it no harm. It had shunted the last few with still-living in them into safer orbits, but some it had missed.

A rather large container drifted past it, this with several lifeforms aboard and the Monitor knew it had only moments to close the wormhole but the protocols were sluggish, the Monitor too far from the mouth to be as expedient as it might have been. Unfortunately, the container drifted directly into the mouth and vanished just before the closure. By the barest of margins, it managed to avoid the entrance stresses and pass over the horizon. Regrettable perhaps, but the Monitor had no control over what happened in the interior. It could not retrieve an object once in transit. The Monitor logged the incident and returned to its repairs.


	25. Step 24: Bow Out Gracefully

**HIS COMM CRACKLED, AND THEN WENT SILENT.**

Crichton awoke and all he could hear was his suit creaking and the slow, near-silent hiss of air escaping from... somewhere. His burns and wounds were throbbing with steady aches. He checked his flickering HUD. Nope, pressure steady, suit power shaky. Then he realized that that hissing sound was his open comm picking up stellar noise and he listened for a little while to the sound of the universe chattering, undercut by the radio noise blaring from the Earth and its proximity. He shut it off. It had nothing to say that he wanted to hear.

Now just the creaking of his suit and his own breathing. In the distance - flashes, the destruction - he trusted - of a few ambitions, some twisted dreams and hopes on either side.

None of it troubled him. All the right people were angry, all the deserving people had got what they deserved and everyone else got what he'd felt like giving them, so for the most part, things had gone as he'd wanted – more or less, there was a glitch here and there and it wasn't perfect but all things considered it turned out rather well.

Well... except for this last bit. He was floating further and further away at a rather decent speed and the onboard damage report told him that his comm could only receive, the suit's actuators were locked so he couldn't move, his air supply would last an arn if he breathed shallowly and slowly and the suit's batteries were depleting at a slow but steady rate. He really should have checked before pulling the damn thing from its charger – or the blast that had thrown him from the Carrier had done more damage than he'd have liked.

Oh, well.

No atmosphere this time, no plunge and happy coincidences.

There was a huge flash in the distance, that ballooned out and out until he thought it might reach him, then it abruptly extinguished itself. Unlike TV and the movies, any non-nuclear explosion in space quickly dissipated. The Impactor had reached the end of its cycle and discharged the rest of its energy.

Crichton nodded to himself, set his visor to opaque and smiled crookedly at his own reflection on the inside of the plate. He was in a black suit against the blackness of space with no locater beacon, drifting speedily away from all the activity. The suit would serve him as an armored coffin to bear him eternally through space.

He decided that he liked the idea. Drift into legend, the body never found, like King Arthur: out there somewhere, just waiting to rise again. He laughed softly to himself.

_Yeah, sure. Gone, damned and forgotten. _The Creature leaves without a fuss. They were better off.

Why not? There was a certain kind of symmetry to that he liked. He was tired, so very frelling tired. He slept but never rested.

He told his suit to power down to bare reserves, scanned again for leaks he might have missed and did the only thing he could in this situation.

He closed his eye and went to sleep, for the first time in a long time feeling as if – at last – rest might come.

It was over.


	26. Begendings

**BEGENDINGS  
**

* * *

**PERHAPS NOT TOO SURPRISINGLY,** very little changed immediately after Earth's first 'alien attack'. In order to keep the Sebacean survivors alive and hopefully safe from lynch-mobs – and there _had_ been incidents – "rewards", that is to say _bounties_, were offered for every one turned over to authorities alive. Some were shot while in custody, legitimately or otherwise and the phrase "_Remember Colorado_!" was chanted like some religious invocation for a rather long time and many lives were lost in the 'roundup'.

Sub-Captain Ne'haelem Arrinitiadides would become the go-to Peacekeeper and she would deftly negotiate for decent treatment and conditions, bartering their technological expertise for their lives. Naturally, any government that had survivors land within their borders grabbed and 'disappeared' as many as possible. An entirely new and different kind of arms race had begun and it would be a very long time before all Sebaceans on Earth would be accounted for and even then legends would abound, as legends did. They would never be trusted, not completely, human and Sebacean would remain distinct bloodlines for quite some time but eventually they'd merge, not that prejudice would not remain. There would always be the distinction between 'pure' lines and so-called 'hybrids'. Science would catch up eventually and make such ideas foolish as certain truths were speculated on and eventually uncovered.

Human nature being it what it was, it wouldn't really make much difference in the end.

* * *

**THE LITTLE SHIP, **which resembled a hunchbacked dragonfly, was a skiff designed to affect repairs on the hull of an Carrier and as Miriya had discovered, was designed to do only a few very specific things and she'd cursed it and herself for at least a hundred microts before taking a deep, deep breath, rolling up her sleeves and began to pull every panel that could come off – off. A little over three hundred microts later, she had re-wired the skiff to do two other things, neither recommended nor likely safe, but she knew it was this or nothing. 'Below' her, the Carrier was in its final death throes and she marvelled at the destruction even while she lamented the death of such a fine piece of engineering. The last pulse of the Impactor sent her skiff tail over nose and she wrestled it back onto an even keel. Something started to hiss and Miriya realized that she was losing atmosphere. The built-in control suit she had disdained she now put on. A few dozen microts later she'd located the leak and sealed it, then sat and huffed at her situation before shrugging and continuing her diagnostics and priming. Propulsion? Check. Manipulator armatures? Check. Baleful glare out the forward portal as a huge chunk of a chunk of reactor shield from the Carrier scraped her skiff as it hurtled by? Check. Fix the damn proximity sensors? Check and frelling check.

So far things were going just _fantastically_.

Miriya finished her repairs and looked back at the Carrier's hulk, the mammoth vessel split neatly down the middle, winking lights denoting escape pods and transports attempting to clear the ship in case the main reactors blew. Miriya doubted they would. _He'd_ have made sure that couldn't have happened – or at least she hoped he had. Detonation of a Carrier's massive slaved Hetch-drives this close to the Earth would strip half its atmosphere away and level anything below the detonation cone. Despite all Crichton's supposed indifference to the Earth, he'd gone out of his way to save it with one of the most audacious displays of all-out… _audacity_ Miriya had ever seen.

He'd done it. She sat for a few moments and contemplated it. The scale of the planning alone surprised her. _How long, _she wondered, _had he been actually plotting all of this_? There was no way in Hezmana he'd been _improvising_. Her instruments suddenly chirped and she deftly avoided the shattered remains of a Marauder. She was now pondering where to go and knew her options were severely limited. The tender mercies of the planet in the distance were not something she'd really wanted to brave but she wouldn't be going far in the skiff. What little she had learned of Earth she hadn't liked – too primitive, too backward, too religious and short-term in their thinking. Definitely not the place for someone like Miriya Breannados. Definitely not someone like Miriya without _connections_. Crichton would never trust her again, if he'd ever trusted her at all. But what else could she do? What she always did, she supposed, survive on her brains and wits – and if necessary, she'd dazzle them with her style and beauty, if the dren-slinging failed.

She had no choices. So she chose.

How had Crichton put it once? "_If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit." _Miriya had remembered laughing at that before she had stopped and realized just how truthful a statement that was – especially for someone in her line – amend that – _had been_ in her line – of work.

The power in the skiff suddenly went out. For long microts she drifted, counting to five and then taking a deep breath and then five and exhaling. After a few of those, the skiff chimed back to life. She ran a quick diagnostic and grumbled about poor designers and twisted herself to get to the internal battery backup and cursed it for another 200 microts before being satisfied that it would hold. She flipped open the comms and picked up faint distress signals – standard emissions from escape pods – and ignored them. She didn't envy any of the techs being trapped on Earth. From what she'd seen _paranoia_ was apparently the chief human trait – aside from aggression.

Something _pinged_ on a military distress channel and Miriya listened in. A Marauder full of techs and not a single pilot among them, she having been critically injured when they'd hit a pod in their escape and now the Marauder starting to drift toward the planet. They were worried about 'uncontrolled descents' and 'crash landings' and Miriya could understand their trepidation. She listened for the coordinates and nodded when they were finally relayed.

Those coordinates would test her skiff to its limits but she reasoned that a Marauder was far more useful than a skiff (_she missing her own ship quite a bit, found herself wondering if she'd ever see it again, then shrugging when she realized that it didn't matter. Whatever secrets she had onboard wouldn't make any difference, especially since she'd long since rigged _The Edge _to self-destruct if anyone pried_) and she needed to be in a far better position than she was currently. She was reasonably sure she could convince the Marauder's pilotless crew that she could help.

Feeling slightly better than before, Miriya turned the skiff on the coordinates, kicked in one of her not-recommended modifications and hoped mightily she would make it.


	27. They Don't Think It Be Like It Is

**THEY TOOK JOHN AWAY** almost the instant the Vigilante departed the Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and Aeryn watched it go, Akanke's flask immediately following it. When told that she needed to be debriefed, she asked for a few moments alone and it was granted. The moment she was alone, Aeryn reached into her pocket for her purloined Moya comm and made another request. Fifteen minutes later, despite the current war footing, a Moya pod landed just outside where she was waiting and Aeryn boarded it without ceremony and was in the air before anyone thought to stop her.

A few fighters tried to give chase but were called back.

Once onboard Moya, she asked to be allowed to return to her old quarters and they let her, leaving her alone after hearing of John's death. The other Crichton was also unaccounted for and they feared he may have sacrificed himself to destroy the Carrier. Aeryn merely absorbed the information, thanked them and then proceeded to her old quarters. She was surprised to see the few possessions she'd left behind still there, albeit in crates, the room otherwise bare. Aeryn then just stood in the room and closed her eyes, inhaling in the smells of the Leviathan, listening to the sounds of the great ship's functions, hearing a DRD squeak by outside. She pulled her hair out of the tight tail she'd had it in and let it fall loose. Eventually she sat on her old bed and listened to the muted silence around her.

Both Crichtons gone, the universe safe from their rage.

Aeryn waited for …something, grief or anger, anything to well up but she felt only a terrible coolness inside her, a numbness that felt like a physical thing. She closed her eyes and hung her head, long dark hair a curtain around her face.

"Well, 'Hakke'…" she said softly to herself, "you prophesied wrongly."

The scrape of a boot by the door and the compassionate eyes of her old Luxan friend gazed into the room.

"Aeryn…" D'Argo. "Sorry."

"It's all right." She looked up. Paying for mistakes seemed to be a rather constant theme in her life. She was rather tired of it. "Did you have enough of me? Have a vote and come to kick me off?"

"No," He told her with a small smile, "I'm the Captain. No one votes but me." He shook his head. "That's not why I'm here. I'm here as your friend. I was curious as to what you were going to do now."

"I have no idea." She gave him a rueful smile. "I don't think I have anywhere to go." She rose abruptly. "Coming here was a mistake."

D'Argo caught her arm as she went past and halted her.

"Pilot and I discussed it. This was your home once. If you want to come back, you can." He smiled and let her go. "Although it seems we're _all_ stuck, without anyone to guide us back through that frelling wormhole."

Aeryn contemplated the Luxan before her. There was nothing on Earth for her now that John was gone. Moya had been as close to a home as she'd ever managed.

"Crew again? And _you_ as Captain?"

"Moya asked for it, Pilot agreed, the rest voted. Rygel lost."

Aeryn laughed and felt inexplicably better. Regardless of her mistakes she'd _earned_ her place on Moya. That made her special - at least here.

"I can do that."

D'Argo nodded. He'd been worried she'd have taken the last little while personally.

"You hungry?" He asked her. "You look hungry."

"Starving." She cocked her head at him. "Is the galley in the same place?"

"Still there." He nodded and led her out. "It's a little bigger and better stocked."

"I had wanted to ask about the changes. From what I saw, they looked well done and intelligently chosen."

"I like to think so. That was Crichton, again - ours, I mean, he thought it was past time we made the money we had work for us. We owed Moya, as far as he was concerned, so we needed to pay her back."

"It sounds like a story. I think I can safely assume nothing went smoothly?"

D'Argo laughed and sketched out the overall tale for her, ending with, "...Talyn is better than ever, according to Crais."

"I would love to see him." She shook her head. "But I'll wait. I can understand how he feels."

"Elack will temper him in time, Aeryn. It won't be forever." He stopped and gestured at a large door. "The galley."

The galley was larger than she remembered and as stated, much better stocked. The place carried aromas she actually recognized.

"Try the Hasprin Grolack. It's very good."

It was and Aeryn loaded a plate and sat to consume it. D'Argo joined her but he did not eat.

"I'm sorry about your… Crichton." He shook his head. "We weren't happy when you left but none of us would have wished that on him – on either of you."

"Thank you, D'Argo. At least it was quick."

"Do you know how it happened?"

She paused, not really wanting to say it.

"The other Crichton killed him."

D'Argo seemed taken aback by the idea.

"Are you sure?"

"He attacked John in the middle of a room full of Peacekeepers." She frowned. "John collapsed and died shortly after."

"It seems strange he would _wait_ so long, considering how many opportunities he'd had. Crichton – our Crichton – was nothing if not practical, sometimes ruthlessly so." D'Argo scratched his cheek. "How did he…?"

"John said they had both had guns but that they'd both ended up disarmed. So they fought hand-to-hand."

"I see." He pondered it. "It would make sense that your John didn't stand a chance."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after the events that took his eye, Crichton trained for monens. He trained _hard._ He learned everything from Luxan Kruga-level swordsmanship to _Musha-da _weapon-less martial nerve techniques. I even heard that he'd learned a few things from the N'sharrasti warsmiths."

_That explained a lot,_ Aeryn thought, recalling his professionalism. Everything he did bespoke a warrior and a well-trained warrior at that. John really never did stand a chance… but he _had_ successfully…

"_Captain D'Argo."_ Pilot.

"Go ahead."

"_We're receiving a transmission from Earth. It's from Jack Crichton. He wishes to speak to Aeryn._" D'Argo looked to Aeryn who shook her head.

"I was wondering when they'd get around to it."

"We'll go to Command, Pilot. Ask him to wait."

"_Of course."_

"Well…" They both headed off at a trot.

"I have been expecting this," Aeryn told Moya's Captain, "and I can imagine what they want. I don't think they'll get it."

"Humans are rather persistent, aren't they?"

"To a fault."

They entered Command and the image of Jack Crichton awaited them on the forward portal. Aside from themselves, Command was empty.

"_Aeryn – I suspected that Moya was where you'd gone."_

"Jack… " Aeryn changed her mind as to what she had been going to say, said instead, "What can I do for you?"

"_It's going mad here but I don't have to tell you that. I had been hoping that you would have lent your voice to the side of sanity."_

"Is there one?'

Jack chuckled.

"_A small one. God, this is going to sound like emotional blackmail… I think John would have wanted you to speak for him, if ever… you know."_

"I'm sure you're doing a more-than-adequate job, Jack. I doubt they'd actually listen to me."

Jack nodded knowingly. He knew they never listened to anyone.

"_Well… I said I would ask. You know how they are."_

"Yes. Jack… let me think about it, all right? I just need some time. I need some perspective."

"_I understand, of course you need to step back right now. I want you to know that no matter what happens, you do have people who care about you here."_

"I know. Have you told Olivia and Susan yet?"

"_Not yet. Haven't had the chance. At the moment they've got enough troubles of their own. Speaking of troubles, I should probably get back to it…"_

"Thank you, Jack. We'll talk again."

"_Thank you, Aeryn. Take care of yourself."_

Jack signed off and Aeryn sighed. D'Argo leaned on a console.

"You can easily see where John got it."

"Easily." Aeryn nodded. "Jack Crichton is a fine man and – " she broke off as Evigan Koiban entered Command. He gave her a nod as he approached and turned his attention to D'Argo.

"Captain, there you are." Koiban began. "I've finally managed to finish my inventory of the medbay and I'm afraid I need to report a _theft_."

"You remember Aeryn Sun, Evigan?"

Koiban bowed.

"Of course. Welcome aboard, madam."

Aeryn nodded back.

"So - a _theft_?" D'Argo sighed and looked at the ceiling. "Right, I'll call Rygel."

"That won't be necessary," Koiban explained as Aeryn suppressed a smirk, "I believe it may have been the _humans_ when they came through on their tour, shortly after our arrival."

"What makes you suspect the delegates?" Aeryn asked him.

"Because," Koiban acknowledged her question with a nod, "someone went through my pharmacopeia and took Dexroltol, Fedozaline, Emorphis and Hexodopinar V. Those are all _Sebacean_-specific drugs."

"What do they do?" D'Argo inquired, not exactly up on his medicinals.

"Dexroltol is an anti-inflammatory sterilizing agent used to treat pulse wounds, Fedozaline is a muscle relaxant, Hexodopinar V a sedative and Emorphis is a homeostatic-inducing chemical stasis. They are all extremely potent and rapidly efficacious – and they are, as I said, Sebacean-specific. They may have slight side-effects in humans, even if the physiology is remarkable compatible."

D'Argo looked to Aeryn and Koiban followed his Captain's gaze.

"Sorry," she explained, "if they took them, they're long gone. They'd certainly never admit to it."

"My only real concern is not the theft but that without knowing what they are or can do, they could cause themselves more harm than good," Koiban cautioned, "and it isn't that they took it all but they took enough." Koiban stopped and appeared puzzled. "Although… now that I think of it, I have a rather broad range of Sebacean-specific medicinals. Only _those _particular four were taken in any quantity."

"Which would imply someone knew what they were," Aeryn reasoned, to Koiban's affirmative nod, "so that narrows it down a bit."

"True."

"Crais?" Aeryn asked.

"Unlikely." D'Argo corrected. "Crais rarely visits Moya, let alone the medbay."

"John?"

"He was in the medbay with the tour but he never left the group." Koiban informed her. "Granted, I didn't watch them all, all the time."

It seemed likely that perhaps some covert agent among the delegates had pinched the drugs for clandestine study. After all, as advanced as human medicine was, Koiban no doubt had medicinals and equipment that could revolutionize human medicine overnight. The human medtechs that had taken John's flask had quietly been excited by the technology as humans had nothing similar to stasis…

_Stasis._

"Koiban – " Aeryn suddenly looked up. "Did you say you were missing a _stasis agent_?"

"Yes," He answered, "Emorphis."

"What is it _exactly_?"

"Emorphis is a Peacekeeper combat grade chemical stasis agent. It's specifically used on combatants too severely wounded to move and too far from actual stasis. It holds in abeyance almost all bodily functions chemically for a short time."

"How would you know if it had been used?"

"It produces a harmless copper-coloured mottling of the skin - a kind of marker so medics in the field know at a glance who has been so treated."

Aeryn turned so fast to D'Argo her hair snapped around her face.

"D'Argo - you said I'm home?"

"If you want to be, yes."

"Good. Then I need to borrow _Lo'lhaa_ – and the both of you."

"What? What for?" D'Argo asked as she marched past them.

"It's faster than a pod and we have to go back to Earth."

Koiban and D'Argo looked at each other and D'Argo shrugged.

"Aeryn – _why_ are 'we' going to Earth?"

"To save the frelling world – _again_. Why else?"

"Did we have anything else to do today?" D'Argo asked his companion. Koiban shook his head as he watched Aeryn move with determination ahead of them.

"Apparently not."


	28. Pauses

**THE **_**VENGEANCE**_** HUNG IN ORBIT** as escape pods of the Carrier continued to leave fiery trails in the atmosphere below. Shiv paid them no heed, she sitting in the pilot's seat and unwrapping her healing fingers. A knuckle-joint of regrowth left and it would be restored to optimum usefulness. She had been alone on Command, the ship silent save for the usual ambient noise. Nevertheless, she barely heard him enter and complimented him on his ability – in her head at any rate.

"Remarkable." Thadon commented as he took in the panorama out the main portal. His looks had finally reverted completely. Shiv again was struck as to how pleasant she found them. In the distance, Scorpius' Carrier still glowed from the ruptured reactors. Eventually those fires would burn out. "I admit to a certain hesitation at your participation with this crew and your Captain, Shivi'na. I'd wondered at your reasoning."

Shiv flexed her fingers and considered it herself. She still could not find a cogent sensible reason for her loyalty to Crichton. Her orange eyes slid to the Carrier. His orders had been to go and not return, to use the wormhole, to find his 'hoard' and help themselves, to build any life they wanted. Oddly enough, he'd asked her to abandon the _Vengeance_, to put her on auto and leave her be. She had thought it an unusual request, as if he were freeing some animal he'd had in servitude and had remembered thinking humans were peculiar creatures indeed. According to his final orders, they should have already been through the wormhole and long gone.

Yet they remained.

"My reasoning is my own," she told him, "and not for dissemination."

"You will be what you are, of course." He told her with a smile. "What will we not do for love."

Shiv turned a highly skeptical look on the man.

"Are you _certain_ you are Thantados?"

Thadon's smiled broadened and he leaned closer.

"There are any number of ways for you to verify it," he told her in a husky voice, "any time you like."

Shiv blinked and looked as close to uncomfortable as she ever managed.

"What happened on that Carrier…"

"… was _meant_ to, Shivi'na. I told you – I was _made for_ you."

She shook her head in consternation.

"You are the single most persistent…!"

"Until you kill or accept me, I shall remain so!" he interrupted her with a laugh. "What is your will?" He threw his arms open in invitation.

"Sorry to interrupt the love play," came Haxer's grating voice from the corridor, "but is there a _reason_ we're still over this frelling wet rock?" His voice was strained and weary. It was also laden with disdain.

"I am assessing what we are to do next," Shiv told him as he stepped into Command.

"What the frell is there to frelling 'assess'?" This was the only course of action that made any sense. "Get us back through the Hezmana-condemned wormhole and the frell to a decent Diagnosian to _help Cha!_"

"She is in no danger in stasis," Shiv told him but that simply made the Decrypter snarl.

"Look – maybe _you_ don't give a flying yotz about anyone, but _I frelling do_, yeah? And I'm saying we cut this frokking dren and get _going_! _Now!_"

Shiv stood and her face was hard but composed.

"You are _incorrect_." Shiv told him, her voice low and hard. "Chak'sa is _my friend_ as well and she will get the all the care she requires when we are able!" A finger jutted at him suddenly. "_You_ will retire to your cabin and _rest_ or I will render you unconscious and deliver you there myself – and I will not be kind about it!"

Haxer blinked. He glared at her for long microts before turning. Rest, yes. He needed it to be ready for Cha. For anything.

"Fine. But this isn't over." He said as he left. He shoved Stark aside as he did. The Stykera watched him go and then entered Command. Shiv turned and sat as if nothing had happened. Thadon shook himself out a combat stance. The man's entire manner had been one of near-mutiny and he marvelled at how quickly Shiv had shut him down. He was about to renew his suggestion for her to explore his identity further when the _Vengeance's_ comm crackled and a faint voice murmured through the static. Shiv ordered the AI to boost the gain and the voice sharpened.

"…_r-relka six, two, two …"_ the static rolled and obliterated the next, then came back with, "_relka six, two, two, only moments left_…, " heavy static, "…_relka six, two, two…"_

Stark looked expectantly at Shiv who looked to Thadon.

"I do not recognize that voice," she told them, "Any of you?"

"Not I," Stark breathed. Thadon shook his head.

"The _Vengeance _insists that the signal is being sent _directly_ _at_ us."

"There's nothing at Relka six, two, two but empty space." Thadon informed her.

"Do we go?" Stark asked.

Shiv seemed to consider and then ordered the _Vengeance _to Relka 6-2-2.

"Only moments remain, so it says. Very well."

The _Vengeance _boosted out of orbit.


	29. Picking Up The Slack

**TRANQUILITY BASE HAD REMAINED UNDISTURBED **since it had been left there in 1969, everything save the American flag the same, it now a stark white from the unfiltered sunlight, flat on the moon's surface as the take-off of Armstrong and Aldrin had blown it over. As it passed over, the Monitor cast a shadow that gave the flag a temporary respite from the harsh light as the ancient machine placed itself in orbit. The Monitor scanned the moon and its parent planet and waited.

There was more to come.

* * *

"_**DIRECTOR! DIRECTOR AKANKE**__, can you hear me?_"

Iriya Nerrimandi awoke with a deep ache that permeated her entire body to harsh lights and many voices. She was in a comfortable bed, the air clean and crisp and permeated with antiseptic smells. She opened her eyes to find herself in a white room surrounded by people in equally-white garments. A woman identified by her badge as 'LT. Anholts' peeled an eyelid open wide and shone a light in. She repeated it on the other. A man in a dark grey uniform with ruggedly handsome features marred by bandages turned to her as he saw her awake.

"Jocasta… back among the living. How do you feel?"

Iriya searched the ghosts of Akanke's memories for a name to give this person and found a '_Williams_' and '_General_' and a professional disdain for the man. There was a grudging respect for his dedication, his determination and resourcefulness but his personality left much to be desired. Iriya recognized the type. She would have no trouble dealing with this one, if necessary. She saw Anholts whisper into his ear and he nodded. Behind the General a man in a black suit and equally-dark eyeshades seemed to be waiting. Heavily-armed men in grey mottled uniforms stood at the door to her room. A man and a woman stood behind the General and Akanke's memories called them 'aides', '_Tweedle Dense' and 'Tweedle Denser'_. Curious names. Everyone in the room was watching her as Anholts helped her sit up.

_Decision time, Iriya_, she told herself, _who _will _you be?_

"She's likely still weak, Sir," Anholts told him, "we should limit any interrogation until she's stronger."

"Understood, Lieutenant, but this _is_ important." He looked down at the 'Director'. "She was up there a good while. We need to know what they did to her. If she's been compromised."

"She's had thorough scans, Sir. With everything we have. There's nothing we can recognize."

Jocasta Akanke had been no one's fool, remotely no one's puppet and certainly wouldn't have been 'compromised' those memory ghosts told her. She could feel them slipping into her own thoughts, into her memories, leaving knowledge and mannerisms and choices in their wake. Iriya smiled to herself. It certainly wouldn't be the first time she lived behind someone's eyes. She gave Williams the only answer he deserved, her voice strong.

"Report," she said to his surprised blink. Behind him the man in the black suit nodded to himself. The General composed himself quickly enough and smiled a smile of his own and gave her what was no doubt a highly-biased, yet somewhat accurate account of the last few days. She could see the layers in the man's eyes, saw a kindred spirit that knew of bluff and double bluffs, a man who knew that the truth was entirely relative depending on the time of day and what was at stake, knew she would be surrounded by such people. It was a game Iriya knew surpassingly well, one at which Akanke had been a supreme mistress. It would an ideal position for her, especially when it came to the handling and treatment of the remaining Peacekeepers. If she had to be a human now, it was her extreme good fortune to be _this_ human. The smile she gave Williams was entirely Iriya's own.

"Repeat that please," she asked Williams.

"Crichton's dead."

Iriya blinked. She'd not anticipated that.

"Sun brought him back in some kind of preservation thing, but it's locked."

She nodded to herself. _A stasis chamber? For a dead man?_

"And where is Officer Sun now?"

Williams frowned.

"She ran off, back into orbit. We tried getting Jack Crichton to coax her back. He failed."

"I see. She can't be taking Crichton's death well."

Williams shrugged, unconcerned with any alien's 'feelings'. No matter what she looked like, how much of a looker she was, she wasn't human and that was enough to forever set her apart. Without Crichton, she would have joined the rest coming down from the sky.

"Don't matter anyway. We've got a _lot _more people with _a lot_ more knowledge we want than he ever had. Provided we can get a lock on this goddamn mess."

"And those new people are where…?"

"Their lifeboats are coming down all over the daylight half of Earth." He flashed his pad at her. "We've got reports of them as being as far west as Japan and as far east as Germany. Some have been reported coming down in the Russian Federation, a few in China, India and the Middle East, but those reports are still sketchy as hell. _They_ don't need to get their hands on 'em. This seriously complicates things."

Iriya agreed and again quietly saluted Crichton. Thousands of techs coming down like a stellar rain. Techs _all over_ the planet. She found it amusing that Crichton had decided against one nation being so arrogant to think they either should have or deserved to have such potential resources all to themselves. She liked that he'd played no favourites. Williams frowned at her smile.

"This is hardly something to smile at, Jocasta," he insisted, "every damn politico from the Veep down to local mayors are screaming about it and they're all screaming at me."

"We do have protocols for such an event, don't we?"

"Not of _this_ magnitude. A troll and a kid on a bike or a galactic cop and his robot, sure. Not _thousands_. Not _every_-damn-where."

Williams was distracted by one of his aides for a moment and when he turned back he handed her a pad. She took it with a momentary hesitation, leery that he would expect her to read it. She was pleasantly surprised that she _recognized_ the language, doubtless another holdover from Akanke's ghost.

"That's everyone that's come down over our territories or our allies', so far that we can track. About eight thousand over North America, a thousand over Central America, about six hundred over South America. Apparently they have some navigational thing that brings 'em down over land." Another soldier handed a pad to an aide who rushed it to him. "Satellites are now confirming they're coming down _all over the world_! _Christ_ Almighty!" His face reddened at the thought.

"How are we treating them?" she asked Williams. He gave her a glare and a sharp reply.

"How do you think?"

"I would hope better than _that, _General. We want their _cooperation_ not their resistance. These are _Peacekeepers_. The harsher the treatment the deeper the defiance."

Williams' eyes narrowed, his suspicions eternal. This man would hold few surprises for her, not that she wouldn't have to be on guard around him, certainly not.

"Now how in _the hell_ would you know _that_?"

Iriya replied easily, some suppositions easy to make. They would be standards everywhere.

"Officer Sun was a Peacekeeper, was she not? Did you not read her many debriefs?"

Williams sniffed and stared for a moment then relented.

"Didn't have the time."

"_We_ need to be the most attractive alternative to any competitor, since we don't have the power to simply insist they be ours nor make them so," she opined, "so attraction, that's sensible, it's the best solution. We simply need to be _where_ they _want_ to come and having arrived, _want_ to _stay_."

"That's not simple, Jocasta, no matter how it sounds. Any suggestions?"

"Are they valuable?"

Williams gave her a look that seemed to question her intelligence.

"Hell, yes. 'A treasure beyond measure', I'm told."

Iriya smiled again and put her head back down.

"Then _treat_ them that way. These people will _profoundly_ change this planet."

"After Colorado? Tricky."

"If we stumble here, we will _never_ recover. Never. The other nations will bury us in short order."

Williams sighed.

"_That's_ the rub, right there. We got _carte blanche _but I honestly don't know if it'll matter. The logistics are going to be _hell_."

Iriya agreed. The future, she decided, would be exceedingly interesting and worthy of her talents. She felt like laughing but refrained. Here was meat for her skills for a long time to come. Again she saluted Crichton and felt a real affection for him as she realized the scope of what he'd actually accomplished.

"I have to go," Williams told her absently, his mind already churning with plans and plots and machinations. Iriya reckoned she would find him a formidable ally – or rival, depending. "This is one damned colossal _mess_." He muttered as turned to go. 'America the Peacekeeper Shangri-La'. _Damn_. That is never gonna fly… gonna have to spin the patriotic angle for all it's worth, maybe find a decent ad agency..." He stomped to the door trailing his aides behind him. At the door he stopped and turned back. "Get some rest," He ordered, "you are seriously going to need it, cause I am _not_ doing this alone. They tell me you're gonna be fine, so hurry up." She nodded and he and the rest departed.

"Fine? Yes," she told the empty room, "perfectly."


	30. Certain Realities

_**I'VE GOT TO ASK MYSELF **__just what I'm doing it for…_

He was staring at the screen over Chak'sa's stasis tube, her life readings almost flat. He had been that way for quite some time.

"They don't care about her," he said aloud, watching those blue jagged lines scroll past, "just means to an end. Just oil for the workings."

_I know what it is to love somebody. To love someone to the point of criminality, to that grand madness that allows you to be bought and sold at her whim. I know it._

"I am what I am."

_How can I be anything else? How can I? What was I that brought me to _this?

"Doesn't mean anything with her in that thing."

_Yet here we float and there she lays. What is a warrior's measure but in how we treat her when she is felled? To simply file her away and what - wait? For what?_

"That frelling wormhole."

_An aperture just like that took _her_ away. _

"Elisaha…"

_Erased who I am…_

"Took everything."

…_who I was…_

"They just keep taking."

…_who I can be again…_


	31. Wolf Among Sheep

**HE OPENED HIS EYE** to the grey darkness with a silent curse on his lips. Life almost relinquished came flooding back in and the familiar hum of his home and her smells and colours assail his senses.

_His home. _ The only love in his short life… the _Vengeance_ awaits him, she all around him, her immense power his to command. He longed for the freedom of the Deep Dark, the spaces between the stars.

They'd found him, his crew, had plucked him from his infinite star-studded tomb and forced him back to existence. They'd condemned him to living.

He wasn't sure if he should thank or curse them.

He was barely there, mostly naked. His skin felt raw, as if it had been lifted off, scrubbed with sandpaper and salted then slapped haphazardly back down and fitted poorly, his scars felt new but his bones felt brittle and old, his muscles feeling as if they'd tear with the slightest movement. He could smell the hot-metal stink of space in the room. His eye ached, his ears ached, his lips felt burnt, every muscle movement something he had to relearn.

He could hear a great silence in his head, knew somehow that Harvey was gone. The inhibitor on his skull crackle-hummed inside his brain and he felt emotions creeping across his cerebral landscape, feelings of hope and home and family. He was beyond tired of John's petty concerns, of John's pointless loves, empty needs and incessant shallow desires. He'd had y_ears._ John had done less in them than Crichton had done in a _few days_.

His smile was cold in the gloom. John had had his hour on the stage. Aeryn Sun's Nothing had brought all the sound and fury necessary, his internal solitude his greatest strength. He reaches for his inhibitor and although there is pain in its use, he ruthlessly shoves the new-surging emotions back from the shores of his consciousness and drowns them in the uncharted depths beyond, feels his comforting internal winter freeze his soul.

_What are you sacrificing?_, some small piece asks him as it sinks.

_Nothing,_ he tells it, I_ have nothing to give up._

In the corner, his _Forge_, his pistols, his longcoat, his clothes.

He sat up and shoved himself to his feet ignoring the sharp hurt and upon standing wavered and waited until equilibrium returned. It took its time and protested every moment.

A screen lit up on a far wall. The _Vengeance _herself in a query as to his status. He reminds himself to give her a voice one day.

"I'm functional." he tells his beloved, his voice sounding old, scratching and burned by the vacuum. "Do you always watch me?"

_Affirmative,_ she answers him silently. Of course, he nods, _of course_ she was watching. She's faithful and true.

Shiv's pale face replaces the _Vengeance _text. Her sharp orange eyes regard him before speaking. There are new things swimming in her depths, he can see. He senses feelings in her and wonders what will change, then decides it doesn't matter. The universe didn't regard any of them as people, so why should they care?

"_Crichton, the AI informed me you were conscious."_

"Everyone watching me." He mutters and she does not answer. "Well?"

"_Your orders?"_

"Where are we?"

"_At station-keeping beyond Earth's moon on its dark side."_

"Who's in one piece?"

"_I, Thadon and Stark. Haxer is… indisposed."_

"Why?"

Shiv explained the last day as best she could. Crichton merely listened as he dressed. Pants, shirt, boots, armored jacket go on and he feels better with every layer. He's strapping his 'girls' on by the time she finishes her tale. It is perfunctory and exact and lacks any real emotional context and no subjective, supposed 'insights' into her comrade's selves. He's grateful for her precision, as always. As long as Haxer steps up when called he can mope to his heart's content. Miriya's defection is not remotely a surprise and it's fine by him. It saved him the trouble of having to maroon or kill her.

He _is_ surprised by how much of his plan actually succeeded, although he knows he's nowhere near finished.

"Did you hire No'Halladan yet?"

There is a brief silence from her end.

"_Not yet."_

"Hire him. If he has any use."

His heavy armored longcoat goes over and he at last feels complete. His Forge he slings and he pulls his gloves on then flexes his hands and cracks his knuckles. A shrug and everything fits. He's as complete as he gets.

"Put us back in Earth orbit." Shiv nods and goes away.

No more time to waste. Nothing's finished, nothing's done.

Never done.

No rest for the wicked, no heat for the cold shadow. Even as he is hunted he hunts. There are illusions that need to be shattered.

First things first, always.


	32. But It Do

**AERYN ENCOUNTERED SURPRISINGLY LITTLE RESISTANCE** when she communicated her intention to visit John in his flask.

"Why are they being so helpful?" D'Argo asked as _Lo'lhaa_ dropped from orbit.

"A guess?" Aeryn was watching the numbers decrease. A few metras away, fighter craft were climbing into the sky. '_An escort_,' she'd been told. "They want the stasis tech."

"Makes sense, I suppose." D'Argo leveled _Lo'lhaa_ out and banked toward the 'Area 51' Aeryn had directed him too. Three human fighter craft dropped into the same heading, still metras away. He felt like leaving them far in his wake but refrained. There was no reason to agitate the already hyper-agitated.

"You're certain that he's been drugged and not dead?" Koiban asked from the rear. Aeryn nodded her raven head.

"It fits," she told him, "the theft of your medicinals was a little too specific. The signal on John's flask was also too specific. Scorpius put him in the flask, but _he_ sent it into space and he made it locatable with something _I'd_ recognize."

"But why save him?" D'Argo questioned. "From Crichton's perspective, your Crichton being dead solves a lot of problems. Him being alive just exacerbates things."

Aeryn had found that question one she'd asked herself a few times already, and she felt a slightly guilty jab when she found herself agreeing. John being alive _did _make decision-making that much harder. Frankly, he being dead had made some of the decisions she'd been mulling _much_ easier.

Still, she had her obligations, like them or not and she'd fulfill them.

* * *

**HE'D BEEN FLOATING OVER HIMSELF**, looking down on his unconscious form lying in bed, his face pale and wan and slack in sleep. He was warmed to see Aeryn sitting quietly by his bed and he knew that things must have been better if she was there. As he floated and spied, the door to his room was suddenly and violently smashed open and he saw the other Crichton burst in with a shout, his rifle roaring to send a blast into his skull to shatter it and splatter it all over the wall. Rather than be horrified or attack him, Aeryn _grabbed_ him in a _passionate embrace_ and kissed him hungrily while the Other laughed and derided him while Aeryn tore at the man's clothes. The other Crichton kicked the now-dead John from his bed and fell onto it as he greedily undressed Aeryn – who let and helped him! - and she was panting and visibly lusting after him and they began to… on _his deathbed_…

John awoke with a shout and a curse, sitting bolt-upright and sweating heavily, body jerking spasmodically, the inarticulate curse dying on his lips as he suddenly realized the reality of his location. His face had lost the discolouration of the Emorphis agent, though it was red with his exertions. His vision was misty and clouded.

"Back among the living," Aeryn's voice cut through the haze calmly, trying to centre him. "Take a moment, have some water." He snatched the glass from her greedily, gulped the cool liquid down, his throat like a desert.

"A-Aeryn – where?"

"Area 51, John." Her face came into focus. "You're alive and we're safe – as far as that goes." She took the empty glass from him and refilled it. John's vision began to clear. He saw D'Argo standing behind her with the Interon, Korb-something. Aeryn glanced back at them.

"They helped me – and Koiban revived you."

"The Other One. He did this." John glared at her over the rim of his glass. "Tell me everything."

Aeryn told him and watched John get angrier and angrier the longer the tale continued. When she'd finished the anger seemed to hit some sort of crescendo and dissipate but she wasn't fooled. He'd merely tucked it down and turned it into new energy. She finished with the news of the Peacekeepers dropping from the sky and that they'd had many at Area 51 already in custody.

"Can you find me some real clothes?" He asked, pulling over the monitoring stickies and detaching himself from the bed. "I also need a comm – I have to talk to the son of a bitch."

"Are you sure that's wise?" Aeryn asked him. She doubted it would accomplish much.

"I _need_ to talk to him. Before he goes too far – and destroys everything."


	33. Never Satisfied

**THE **_**VENGEANCE**_** HUNG** in a geosynchronous orbit over Nevada with its Captain back in his place on Command. The AI reported all repairs that could be made completed. Some would have to wait, but they were minor. Shiv was in her co-pilot's chair with Thadon sitting where Miriya had and Haxer back at his place. He seemed to be holding it together.

"Are we here for a reason?" Haxer asked, voice sharp with a curt edge.

"Wouldn't be here otherwise." Crichton told him. He was keying in a series of codes on his board. Haxer glowered for a microt and then nodded.

"Crichton," Thadon spoke up, "there is an incoming transmission from Earth."

"This what you hired him for?" Crichton lazily turned his head to Shiv. "Badass Blade Mage taking messages?"

"He assured me it was not beyond his skill set," came the faintly amused answer. Thadon frowned at his new station.

"I am hardly…" he began but Crichton cut him off.

"Who's it from?"

Thadon seemed to count to two in his head.

"Yourself."

Crichton nodded once to himself and waved at the forward portal.

"Well, hell. Put me on."

There was static and the image juddered and danced on the screen. After a few moments, the image of John's face stabilized. Behind him he could see Sun and Koiban. D'Argo sat to his left. They were all on _Lo'lhaa_.

"I hope you're charging him by the minute, D." Crichton said laconically. D'Argo nodded with a small smile.

"_Missed opportunity."_ The big Luxan grumbled.

"What do you want, John? Time is money."

"_I need you to come to Earth."_

Crichton's chuckle was derisive.

"I'm not remotely _that _stupid."

"_Why'd you zap me?"_

"Plan H." Crichton told him. "Depending on circumstances."

"_What was plan A?"_ Aeryn asked.

"Messiah in a coffin." Crichton told her coolly. "Which can still be arranged."

"_So you did steal my Emorphis,"_ Koiban stated, "_clever_."

"I'll buy you a new hat," Crichton told him, "in recompense."

"_Goddamn it."_ John growled.

"One way of looking at it." His doppelganger grumbled in that gravel voice of his, not remotely contrite.

"_Do you know what you did?"_ John's tone was accusatory.

"Everything you wouldn't." Crichton's face was calm.

"_Just tell me you're leaving."_

"When I'm ready."

"_You're not closing the fucking wormhole_." John snapped. "_Not after you've ruined everything else."_

Crichton's lips twisted in a faint smile.

"This conversation serves no purpose," as he leaned back to signal Thadon to cut transmission.

"_I'll make you a deal!"_ John shouted and Crichton halted.

"A 'deal'?" The pirate's voice was heavily skeptical.

Aeryn was looking at John intently. Crichton could see the wheels turning in her head.

"_Okay – so far you've managed to…"_

"…_give you everything you'll ever need."_ Aeryn interrupted. She was looking at Crichton, the realization dawning on her. "_When you first arrived, you told Akanke that only you could give them what they wanted…" _she shook her head_, "…and you _did_. A salvageable Carrier full of advanced technology and thousands of people who know how to use it. More working tech than they could have come up with in two hundred cycles."_ She smiled a small smile. "_All up there waiting and PK techs falling all over the world." _She looked to John_. "You can't deal. You have nothing he wants."_

"I'd listen to her if I were you." Crichton told him, with a slight nod in her direction. She returned it.

"_Where's_ Scorpius?" John demanded.

"In hell. One way or the other." Crichton told him.

John was silent for a long while.

"What do you want?" He asked, not liking that he felt compelled to do so. None of it had gone the way he'd wanted but he couldn't argue with the results. He knew he had few options.

"Nothing."

"_Fuck you, okay?"_ John spat. "_I want that out there. Fuck. You. Forever."_

"You're a sore winner." Crichton's eye narrowed.

"_Winner? What the hell did I win?"_ He thrust a finger at the pirate and then waved a hand behind him to indicate the rest of the world. "_You dropped all of that into my lap and what – expect me to clean it up?"_

"I don't care what you do," Crichton told him looking out a side portal at the Earth below, "but you _will_ have to do _something_."

"_I was _this _damn close and you…!"_

"Close to what? I recognized what you were building. I know what you were contemplating."

"_You don't know shit. I could have changed everything."_

"Everything's changed. You win." Crichton refused to budge.

"_Just like that, huh? You've cast the whole world into chaos and you leave me up to my nose in it."_

"Any ambitious man would look at it as an opportunity. Instead of whining about being suddenly irrelevant."

"_That's what you think you did? Made me irrelevant?"_

Crichton looked back at him.

"I'd hoped to give you some perspective. You want the credit? You can have it."

"_Don't do it."_ John spat again. "_Leave it the hell alone."_

Crichton shrugged, waved to Thadon.

"Take it or leave it."

The transmission went blank. In the distance, they could see the huge bulk of the Monitor approaching. Crichton sat up in his chair and reached for the controls.

"That went well," he told no one in particular, "don't'cha think?"


	34. Decisions, Decisions

**WHEN THE TRANSMISSION** went dark, John didn't wait. He marched out, still shaky, and stomped truculently to a Hummer, one of the many vehicles and soldiers surrounding _Lo'lhaa_. He found a comm-tech and demanded to be put in touch with General Williams. After a few too-long-for-John moments, Williams answered. His tone was dismissive and John could hear that they no longer considered him essential or even necessary.

"_Still alive, Crichton? You got more lives than a damn cat. I'm a busy man. Make it short."_

"I don't care how goddamn busy you are, General." Crichton told him cordially, refusing to be counted out. "He's gonna close the wormhole."

"_What?! You sure of this?"_

"It's a dead certainty."

There was a long pause at the other end and John knew his worth was starting to climb back up. He could hear in Williams' voice when he finally replied.

"_Can we do anything?"_

"The Peacekeepers on this base." John told him. "I want command of those Peacekeepers."

* * *

"**WHAT DOES HE WANT TO DO?"**

'Akanke' eyed Williams on the monitor before her. Thanks to the woman's exceptional conditioning, Iriya was already on her feet, if cautiously. Her new body was proportioned differently than her previous one, Akanke's breasts a little larger, her hips as well, Iriya now slightly taller than before, the centre of balance changed. The skin tone was much darker, the eyes darker, the hair different, of course but Iriya didn't particularly care for trivialities outside of their usual care and upkeep. All-in-all, Iriya thought she managed a rather attractive package altogether.

She had also discovered the brown liquid seemingly everyone consumed on this planet called 'coffee' and was tentatively trying it. She'd found that the two extra ingredients called 'cream' and 'sugar' made the vile stuff slightly more palatable. Akanke had apparently been fuelled by the stuff so Iriya knew she needed to build up a tolerance. If she could. So far it appeared it would be an uphill battle.

"_One is claiming the other is about to close the wormhole. He wants us to give sanctuary and amnesty to any PK pilot that'll go stop him. He also wants command of the ones we already have in custody."_

"An interesting move." _Indeed_, she thought. "How many in custody?"

"_Several."_

"Propose it and see what happens."

"_You think we should? Give them back their vehicles? They could run."_

"They've nowhere _to_ run. I think it's a viable option worth considering." She tried another mouthful of coffee and swallowed, debating whether the idea of being in an alien stasis could be used as an excuse to switch to the local teas, which she found far more palatable. "Peacekeepers working willingly for us sets a precedent that cannot be ignored."

"_I'll take that under advisement."_

"Remember General, they're _soldiers_. They respect strength. I also think, if you can be …subtle enough… well, Peacekeepers also believe they are superior to all other races - and might find it slightly more preferable that the orders are at least being given by someone who _looks_ Sebacean."

"_Better than that Scorpius bastard?"_

Iriya shoved her cup aside. Hideous stuff. An aide brought her another pile of reports and Iriya found herself smiling. She asked her aide to find her some tea and the aide nodded and left. She glanced at the top report that told of troubles arising from Peacekeeper landings.

"Infinitely. Besides, they'll also have a _grudge_."

She respected Crichton. There was no doubt in her mind. Everything he had done up till now had grown that respect even higher.

Williams chuckled on his end.

"_I'll get right on that."_

Iriya also respected Crichton just enough not to make it easy for him.

* * *

"**EXPLAIN IT TO ME,"** Aeryn demanded, "just _once_ more."

"It's self-explanatory." John insisted. "I'm not letting him take this away from me too."

"Take _what,_ exactly? The _wormhole_?" They were bouncing along in a Hummer toward SE3, back to where John had once commanded all the clandestine operations based around his return.

He was still fuming over his abrupt 'demotion'. D'Argo and Koiban had been allowed to depart as a 'reward' for reviving him. The alacrity with which they'd done so had added to his irritation.

"Yes, the damn wormhole! Do you know what I could have accomplished _without_ his interference?" He clenched a fist so hard she heard his knuckles crack. "I could have ended the threat once and for all!"

"What threat? You mean Scorpius?"

"Peacekeepers – Scarrans – Scorpius, all of it! _Forever_."

Aeryn blinked in bewilderment.

"By giving him exactly what he wanted? How does _that_ work?"

John was certain he didn't like this new-seeming ever-questioning attitude of hers.

"It was a _trap_, Aeryn! A carefully set-up and rigged _trap_."

"It wouldn't have worked, John." She said a little-too-quickly for his liking. "Scorpius would _never_ have believed you were just going to hand it over. He _didn't_, in fact."

John glared, his voice thick with disgust at his seeming defeat.

"_You_ did. _He _did, he was willing to kill me to stop it. I was playing a role _perfectly_! Just so happened that no one bothered to _trust me or give me any credit_ for knowing _what the hell I was doing_!"

"How the frell was giving _Scorpius a working wormhole weapon_ going to solve anything?" Aeryn looked at him as if he'd suddenly gone mad – again.

"It wouldn't have been _his_ weapon. It would have been _mine_." The Hummer rumbled to a stop and they stepped into the dry Nevada air. "He would have had dozens – hundreds - one built for every Carrier – but I had incorporated a hidden dead-man's switch into mine and they would have all been linked. Activate one and _boom_. All go at once. No more Peacekeepers. No more Scarrans. No more war, no more threat."

"You would have wiped out…" She'd taken a step away from him.

"Yeah. _All_ of 'em – and the universe would have been that much _cleaner._"

John was too deep in his anger to notice the creeping look of horror on her face. What he'd been planning… did he really think that that had been the _best _solution? Visions of endless slaughter and destruction flashed again through her mind, 'Hakke' staring emotionlessly at her as she watched a galaxy burn.

"He thinks he's got all the damn power," John muttered as he walked toward the base doors, "I'll show him _power_." He was at the door when he realized she hadn't followed. "Are you coming?"

Aeryn's face was composed and she looked calm.

"Sorry. Just thinking." She told him, her voice neutral.

"I'm going to need your help corralling the Peacekeepers, Aeryn." His eyes were suspicious. "You're with me on this, aren't you?"

"Of course," she said after a moment, "it's important." She nodded. "Getting their cooperation is essential."

"We can still salvage this," John sounded sure, "we can still win."

"I'm sure you're right." Aeryn followed him in. In the lobby she turned.

"Where are you going?"

"To the corral," She told him without a trace of irony, "it's time I got started."

"No time like the present?" He sent her a smile, glad that she had finally come around.

"Long past the time," she told him with a smile of her own, equally glad that she had as well.


	35. Nice Wormhole You Have There

**THE GREAT SPHERE OF THE MONITOR AND THE GUN-SHAPED **_**VENGEANCE**_ were an odd pair as they orbited secured together with a docking tube. Crichton and Shiv were waiting by a hatch as the seals locked and atmos hissed in. A short walk brought them up against the Monitor. The metal of the Ancient's machine had an odd sheen up close, with scans showing it to be incredibly dense but relatively light. Decay-rate scans showed the thing was approaching nearly three _billion_ years. Crichton pulled a glove off and ran his hand down its surface.

"Something?" Shiv asked him, watching him do it.

"When this thing had been new, there wasn't any life on Earth beyond the barest microbes. It was _there_." He replied. Shiv saw no particular point to what he was doing but kept it to herself.

"I see," was all she said. He smiled.

"Just so I can say I did it."

"To whom?"

"To myself." He said, not wanting to try and explain it. She nodded again.

"You believe this device can help us?"

"Close the wormhole? Easily. Just gotta convince it."

"Not so easy?" She asked as the door hissed and slowly began to open. Crichton suddenly realized that it was entirely possible that he and Shiv were the first living things other than those ancient Ancients to board this thing. Three _billion_ years. She might not have been impressed, but he was feeling it.

"Never is." The door hissed open entirely. "On the bright side," he told her, pointed in, "I've had some help already."

There was a squeak and a chirp and Shiv looked in to see Crichton's DRD, '1812' roll up to the door to greet its master from a curved wall. She arched an eyebrow.

"I had wondered where that thing had gone."

"He was doing some negotiating for me." Crichton reached over and patted the machine. "Nice going, little buddy. Helluva job." 1812 chirped again.

The interior of the Monitor had not apparently been designed along any aesthetic lines Crichton recognized. Everything was elegant stark white curves and dark lines, twisted around and upon itself. Crichton swore he could smell the age so heavy on the machine, but there was very little in the way of actual scent. The interior was antiseptically clean. A cool light shimmered on everything like moonlight through water. Even as they watched, the area before them flattened out into an open space. Crichton stepped into that space with Shiv close behind. A scan flashed suddenly through the room and both staggered. Crichton doubted he'd ever get used to scans so strong they were actual physical things. There was then a sound like an exhaled breath through the space and a hum like electricity. From the 'floor' grew a roughly humanoid shape, flexing and morphing. When it finished, it was wearing clothes and had short blond hair, brown intelligent eyes and colour to its skin. Crichton recognized it. He'd seen it before. "She" looked a bit like a darkly-tanned Scarlett Johansson.

_SPECIFY PURPOSE _

The voice was much different in person than it had been the first time they'd encountered this 'being'. It was flat with neither inflection nor tonal range. The words were simply …spoken.

"Uh… a request for aid?"

_REQUEST WAS RECEIVED AND RENDERED_

"_Further_ aid." Crichton told it. "Final aid, as it were."

_TO WHAT PURPOSE_

"I need to close the wormhole and keep it closed."

_THAT IS COUNTER TO THE PURPOSE OF THIS MONITOR_

"That sounds like a 'request denied'," Shiv opined and Crichton agreed.

"Maybe. But it still needs to be closed. You saw what's happened."

_COUNTERMEASURES ARE NUMEROUS AND AVAILABLE_

"Naturally, but I've worked hard to avoid most of those. All that killing and planetary destruction for one guy…? Excessive."

_PRECENDENTS HAVE BEEN SET_

"No doubt. Surely you can be flexible."

_COLLAPSE OF THE PROFUNDITY APERTURE IS COUNTER TO HARD-CODED OPERATIONAL PROTOCOLS_

Crichton put his hands behind his back and paced a few steps away from Shiv and then began to pace around her. 1812 took up station next to diminutive assassin.

"All I want is it shut. Lock it behind me, kinda thing."

_YOUR DUPLICATE CAN SUBSEQUENTLY REOPEN THE PROFUNDITY APERTURE WHICH WOULD BE COUNTER TO YOUR STATED GOAL_

"Eventually, yeah. You have the keys though, right? You can close it in such a way that would make it really, _really_ hard to open again." Crichton came to a stop and waved at hand at the ceiling. "Say… for _years_. Maybe a decade or two…" He smiled his crooked smile. "We both get what we need. It closed and the knowledge safe, no more intrusions into this space from hostiles after that knowledge."

There was a protracted silence. Shiv remained calm as Crichton continued to circle her, making a point to look her up and down as he circled, always with an appreciative nod. She had the faintest of smiles on her lips as he did it.

_THIS PROPOSAL IS POSSIBLE AS YOUR SUPPOSITION IS VALID_

"See, Shiv? Validity. And you were worried." Another arched eyebrow greeted that.

_HOWEVER_

Crichton stopped and frowned.

"Why did I know there'd be an 'however'?"

_PROLONGED CLOSURE OF THE APERTURE IS NOT POSSIBLE BY THIS MONITOR DUE TO LIMITED NATURE OF CONTROL NODES AND INNATE NATURE OF PROFUNDITY_

"So… you can only close it for a short time because you don't have the power to do much past that and the wormhole will reopen itself anyway?"

_CORRECT – THIS IS A HARDWIRED FAILSAFE TO PREVENT CATASTROPHIC TAMPERING_

"Of course it is. How short a time is a short time?"

_FIVE LOCAL PLANETARY REVOLUTIONS_

"Damn. He'll be back in space long before that." Crichton looked at Shiv who merely cocked her head back toward the Vigilante as he thought furiously. Yes. He still had options. "All right. Five years it is. It'll have to be enough."

_EXPLAIN_

"Here's what could happen – close this end of the wormhole for those five years. Also, get my companions – the two Leviathans – back safely through it." Crichton gestured to himself as he looked at 'Scarlet'. "None of us have any interest in the wormhole or staying here. Doable?"

_THIS WOULD NOT SEEM TO SAFEGUARD THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PROFUNDITY ADEQUATELY_

"But it would." Crichton motioned Shiv to return to the doorway. "Supposedly, when the five years is up, you _just close it again_."

_THIS MONITOR IS NOT_

"…his babysitter, I know. However, he's a human approaching middle age. Even with a best case scenario, you'd only have to do it five times, tops. You'd barely notice the time go."

Again the Monitor lapsed into a silence. Crichton sent Shiv back to the _Vengeance_ with 1812 and waited in the doorway.

_THAT PROPOSAL IS ACCEPTABLE_

"Glad you see it that way." He managed a single step.

_HOWEVER_

Crichton rolled his eye.

"Yes?"

_LOCAL INSTABILITIES IN THE FAR APERTURE REQUIRE EXPEDIENCY ON YOUR BEHALF_

"Meaning …I've got to go soon?" Crichton calculated in his head. "I can do that." He blinked. "Wait - what do you mean, the '_far_ aperture'?"

_THE REMOTE END OF THE PROFUNDITY HAS NO FIXED EGRESS AT THIS TIME AND IS PREPARING TO SHIFT LOCALE_

"The _other_ end going to _move_?"

_CORRECT – OPTIMAL EGRESS POINT CANNOT BE GUARANTEED_

"Gotcha. Leave now or end up pretty much anywhere – and not necessarily anywhere near where I want to be."

_CORRECT_

"Okay, I can do that." He managed another step.

_INTERROGATIVE_

"What?"

_PROPOSAL FOR ACCESS AND TRANSIT OF LOCAL VESSELS_

"I'm listening."

_OPTIMAL TRANSIT WOULD BE FACILITATED BY ENCLOSURE OF PROPOSED VESSELS WITHIN LOCAL SUPERSTRUCTURE_

"You want to carry us through yourself?"

_AFFIRMATIVE_

"You can do that?"

_AFFIRMATIVE_

"Why?"

_THIS MONITOR CAN ANTICIPATE AND CORRECT FOR PROFUNDITY CHANGES IN TRANSIT CORRIDORS AND ADJUST ACCORDINGLY_

"You know the way back quicker?"

_CORRECT_

"You have a deal. I'll need a bit to tell the other Captains."

_EXPEDIENCY IS_

"… warranted and advised. I got it. I'm going."

Crichton hesitated and when nothing further was forthcoming he stepped out and back to the _Vengeance_. He smiled to himself. This was going better than he'd planned. He was congratulating himself all the way to Command, right up until Shiv told him of an approaching picket of Prowlers. Crichton sat himself in his chair and reached for the comm system.

"_Naturally_," he muttered and ordered Shiv to prime the combat systems.


	36. Roads To Travel

**THE PROWLERS RACED INTO THE SKY** with a grim-faced Aeryn Sun leading them. It had taken a few heated exchanges to sell the pilots on their situation – along with the new and rather stark realities of their predicaments. With colonels and marines and MP's surrounding them and grounding and imprisonment facing them some had acquiesced, while most had stood their ground, Aeryn's hard-to-deny logic as encouragement.

"Switch comms to Ej'a 21," Aeryn told her 'recruits' as they punched through the upper atmosphere, "and turn on a heading of Velka 129." The Prowler's tracking array was sweeping ahead.

"_Officer Sun,"_ a pilot said, Aeryn recognizing the voice of the rather young one who had been the first to step forward, Rehja Valis, her name was, "_when you mentioned contamination down there…"_

"…I meant what I said." Aeryn finished. "It's a moot point now. You can all work past it or spend rather miserable short lives down there. I didn't lie, Earth has its amenities. They also need us more than we need them."

"_We?"_ One of the male pilots, a Droka Vajs, a veteran and once a member of the Tegron Regiment, Getheme Company, a rival of Pleisar.

"We. I'm still a Sebacean."

"_And still the_ Striker, _don't forget it."_ Valis again. Aeryn shook her head. That was one of a few informal titles she'd gathered over the cycles. Whatever else she might have been, she was _still_ the finest Prowler pilot of her generation and that yet had weight, despite the ancient slander against her.

"_The_ deserter, _you mean." _There was no heat behind that label.

"I didn't desert." Aeryn corrected him. "I didn't have a choice. I was labeled IC on no evidence and forced out."

"_By_ Crais," Valis supplied, "_if Officer Sun is a deserter, he's a damn _traitor _and that makes every command he ever gave suspect."_

"_That's one way of looking at it, I suppose,"_ Vajs conceded. Pilots were nothing if not flexible. He wasn't some indoctrinated ground-slogger. Pilots were elites. That was a simple fact. "_At least humans look Sebacean. If you squint real hard, that can make up for a bit."_

"_It'll have to,"_ Lukasi Halkus, a veteran of the Genki Regiment broke in, "_as we have no more damn choices."_

"You always have choices," Aeryn told him, "if you're smart."

"Work _for the_ humans?" Halkus seemed to find the idea dubious.

"Would you rather be back under Scorpius?"

"_Frell no!"_

"Well, then, you have choices." Aeryn pulled her Prowler up short and called them to a halt. They were firmly in orbit. "One of them is to listen to me. I want you to forget what I said down there."

"_Come again?"_ Halkus asked.

Aeryn had stood in the hanger with a dozen Prowler pilots and their heavily-guarded Prowlers and felt things shifting inside her, pieces of her she thought immoveable fallen and smashed and pieces she sworn to herself never to contemplate shining before her eyes like freedom itself. She'd told them what the government had wanted them to hear, what John had wanted them to hear. Now she told them what she wanted them to hear.

"Most humans are harmless," she began, trying to pitch it to their mindsets, "but the governments here are like governments everywhere. If you're smart, you'll appoint leaders or pick one you can trust from any survivors and insist that as many as possible be gathered in one place and isolated – for your own good, of course. You are _aliens_, after all. Most will likely agree. That will dull some of the contamination concerns, at least initially."

"_They'll try and exploit us, naturally." _Vajs presented that as a simple truth.

"Naturally. Many Peacekeepers will disappear. Frankly, Humans can be more ruthless than any Peacekeeper can imagine. They have more religions and more political systems on one planet than in the entire Influence."

"_Makes ya wonder how they get anything done."_ Halkus.

"They don't." Aeryn corrected him, listening carefully to any reply. "That's their problem. They need help."

"_Why they'll _need _us."_ Valis offered. _Good girl,_ Aeryn thought. _One of you is a thinker._

"_Well, there's a thing."_ Vajs seemed thoughtful.

"_We're stuck,"_ Halkus said, "_few choices but not without options."_

"Precisely. You're all about to advance this planet several hundred cycles almost overnight. That's no small thing. We were called Peacekeepers for a reason and if any planet needed us, it's _this _one."

There was silence from the others as they seemed to be thinking it over. Valis eventually spoke up.

"_This mission we're on?"_

"Never mind it," Aeryn told her, punching in the coordinates for Australia's Woomera Prohibited Area and the clandestine base there, "go here and ask for asylum. Then demand that the rest be sent there as well. There's plenty of room." She thought a moment, then added, "it's hot, but not too hot. It will go a long way to calming the humans. Think of it as a new mission, one for yourselves."

"_Suffer now for greater rewards later, eh?_" Halkus asked with a heavily skeptical tone.

"I know how it sounds. It's that or their governments will bury you all so deep in their bureaucracy you'll never get out. You can trust Crichton and a few others, Director Akanke for one. You'll _have_ to trust someone and they're good places to start."

"_How do we know this isn't a trick?"_ Vajs demanded.

"Do it or don't," Aeryn reposted, "I don't really care." She turned her Prowler on a different heading and abruptly boosted out of orbit. "Merely offering you alternatives."

"_Where are you going?"_ Valis asked her.

"Somewhere else," was all Aeryn said.


	37. Goodbyes Are Easy To Remember

**JOHN SAT IN SILENCE** deep in a small office in SE3 and tried to relax. Chaos was reigning everywhere and he knew he'd have to step into the thick of it, but for now he needed an half-hour to himself, to collect himself and try and find some centre inside to gather his wits and breath.

Fate, as always, had other ideas.

"_Commander Crichton,"_ a voice cut through the room, "_transmission coming in for you. It's from Officer Sun."_

John sighed and activated the screen on the desk before him.

"Put her through."

Aeryn's face fuzzed onto the monitor. She was obviously in her Prowler. He could see the curve of the Earth through the cockpit behind her.

"Aeryn? Where are you?"

"_In orbit, John."_

"Right – you were going after…"

"_I've sent the other Prowler pilots to Australia, to Woomera." _She said abruptly.

"What? You were supposed to…!"

"_It's something you should advocate for all the Peacekeepers – neutral ground. All of them in one place. Trust me, it will help in the long run."_

"Well, they'd be easier to watch over. Use the UN as MP's as it were..."

"_Whatever works. I'll leave the details to you." _He frowned but gave it some thought. "_Many will have contamination concerns."_

_Right,_ he thought. _Jesus, I hadn't considered that. If we say we're putting them in quarantine for their own good, to lessen contamination…_

"It's a good idea, Aeryn. It'll take one helluva lot of doing but it'd be worth pursuing, but I question your timing – what about…"

"_Nothing worth having is ever easy. You've said that yourself."_

"It's usually true." He smiled at her. "I still get my Golden Age, if I play it right."

"_I'm glad for you."_ She looked away, stared into space. He could see she was struggling to say something and got a clammy precognition of what was coming. He hoped beyond hope it wasn't what he feared, yet he knew it was and he admitted to himself, he'd expected it. That was the only thing he could think of as to why he wasn't feeling it as deeply as he might, otherwise. Her discontent had been – and was – nothing new.

John squinted at her. Her manner was subdued, yet somehow charged.

"You're not going after him to stop him, are you?"

"_No." _

John felt his chest tighten.

When are you coming back?"

"_I'm not." _Flat and toneless.

"What are you saying?"

"_I've given this a lot of thought, John. I …can't do this any longer... I can't spend the rest of my life wading through this morass. It's just not who or what I am. I don't know how to say this without hurting you, so I'm just going to say it."_ She looked down and took a deep breath. "_I came here because it was what you wanted and I was happy for you. But I'm not happy for me and haven't been. I've tried, you know I've tried."_

"I know," he managed. Even with his expectations, his insides were shaking.

"_I'm so sorry to do it this way - it's so cowardly, but I can't be there because if I _was _there, I know you'd persuade me to stay and I can't." _She looked him straight in the eye. "_It will sound like an excuse… but I was born in space, I was born to fly. I can't live on the ground, on one planet. I can't do it your way. I don't know how else to say it."_

John found himself in an oddly calm state of mind, even if the idea of her leaving him curdled his guts and brain. He knew he'd been so bent on saving Earth and being its hero and advancing his species that he'd bulldozed his way forward, dragging her along and not really stopping to consider how selfish that had actually been.

"It's not a life you want." He said finally.

"_It's the life you want and I want you to have it."_

"Just not with you?" The anger was understandable, it was hurt and selfish and he couldn't help it. He tried to bite it back. "It's not much of one without you, but… I can understand it. Of course I understand it. Honestly, I knew this was coming. Doesn't mean I like it."

"_I don't like it either."_ Her face hardened and he knew she was doing her best to control herself. "_The idea of staying here makes me …resent you. I don't like that thought and I don't want to do it."_

"I haven't been at my best lately, have I?"

"_No,"_ she told him with no hesitation, "_not remotely."_

He ran his hands through his hair, his actions the last week tumbling through his brain, the things he'd wanted and actually _planned._ _Finish them off, once and for all, not considering how destructive it would have actually been…_

"_I know that's not you, John. I can understand the pressure you've been under."_ Aeryn told him sympathetically. "_I just need you to…"_

"Understand the pressure _you've_ been under," he finished for her, "_I don't want you to go_." He added emphatically.

"_I know."_

"But you can't," John rubbed his face, "and I can't ask you to stay."

He looked back at her. Silver trails of tears were streaking her face. The sight of them spiked directly through his chest, made him ache all over. He knew it was a stupid thing to say, what he said next but he had to ask, he had to know.

"Is it because of _him_?"

"_Yes. And no."_ She answered after a moment and he knew it was the truth. "_He was right. _We _led Scorpius here. We made this happen. This is our fault_. _It's… so hard to explain_."

"You're not made for any of this." It hurt to say but it was also the truth. She was right. He'd been supremely selfish. "I've ruined your life."

"_I kept coming back."_

He could hear that she had no real regrets in that and that helped ease the ache a little. He took a deep, deep breath and expelled it in a gust. His mouth didn't want to speak but he forced it out anyway.

"I …need to let you go." He hung his head. "God… I just don't want to…" He looked back up, forced out, "Where are you going?"

"_To Moya." _ _Not to him, then_, she could see him think, _back home, not to another man's arms. _

"He'll close the wormhole." John said and for once, Aeryn knew it wasn't about him this time. It was about the possibility of her perhaps returning one day.

"_You have the knowledge_," she told him, trying a smile, "_you can reopen it. Or make a new one. You can do that. You have the means now."_

"If I can make the world in my image," he said with a rueful smile of his own, "if I can just get them on my side."

"_I'm on your side. I always have been. I always will be."_

"I love you, Aeryn Sun."

"_I love you, John Crichton. That's always been true and will be, no matter where I am."_

Behind him, people were beginning to knock. At his elbow, the comms were flashing with many lights.

"They demand my attention," he told her, his insides still rolling, "I don't want it but I _owe_ you for everything you've done. For everything _I've_ done." He swallowed and finally managed the strength. It wasn't easy. It was still selfish, but damn him he wouldn't apologize for it.

"Go then."

"_Nothing's forever, John." _She hoped he'd take it as she meant it. It was about possibilities.

"I know. Go, Aeryn - before I change my mind and start _begging_."

There was a long pause between them.

"Just take care of yourself," he said at last, "this _could_ be home, someday."

"_Yes, it could. Someday."_

"Goodbye, Aer-..."

"_No, John,"_ she interrupted sharply, "we _don't say goodbyes."_

John just nodded, that inexplicably warming him.

"Someday." He tried instead. She nodded.

"_Someday._" Another moment's hesitation and the screen went blank, leaving only his own face staring back.

Crichton contemplated it for a long while, then abruptly put his fist through it, through that face that had begun to fall into grief and yanked that fist out to pound it on the table until sharp and intense pain lanced up his arm and blood started spattering the office. The pain helped him focus.

_Sacrifices had to be made_, he'd told himself once. In a way, he knew that Aeryn _would_ have left him one day, one way or another. Intellectually, he knew that life on Earth was not one she would ever adjust to, no matter how much she loved him, no matter how much she tried – and she _had tried_.

"Set 'em free…" he muttered to himself, examining his now profusely bleeding hand.

For a good while he sat and let his hand bleed, watched the blood drops drip and spatter on the desktop surface until the pool was wide enough to once again see his own reflection.

Had he driven her away? Yes, to a certain extent. Life here had dulled her, blunted and oppressed her. The idea of that kind of Aeryn, made harsh by resentment, cold with boredom and bitter with inactivity made him shudder, the idea of her mentally pacing like a cage animal, turning into something not his Aeryn Sun.

"…if they _come back_…" he spat that, no longer believing it. He'd wondered how his counterpart had taken it and now he thought he knew, knew how hard it would be to be without her. He would change without her, as _he _had changed. But the Other _had_ adapted, hadn't he? He'd survived. He'd been broken and darkened, but he'd reshaped himself into something new, something _formidable_. That's what Crichtons did _best_. They _survived. _Even if the end be bitter, they _won._

He nodded sharply, once, to himself. Then he rose and went to the door and called for a medic. He looked back to the shattered monitor, the last place he'd seen her face. It didn't sit well. He felt as if he'd been busted open with his insides spilling out to smash apart on the floor and then put back jagged and cutting. He could only endure it as Crichton had endured it. He'd not believed it before but now they were _brothers_. They'd endured the same pain. They would walk from the wreckage new men and they would change everything. That's what they did. It was what he would do.

With or without her, he had a new world to build. Someday – and he planned on being there to see it, his people would go out and put the bastards in their places, once and for all, no matter what it took.

In the end, he'd _win_.

That smashed monitor now symbolized his old life, his old dreams. He had a new outlook now. He'd finally listened, finally learned his lessons.

"Goodbye, Aeryn."

It hurt, it would hurt for some time but she'd been wise. It had to be done.

He closed the door and held out his hand as the medic approached and as he tended him, John flagged down a passing lieutenant.

"Sir?"

"Find General Williams. Tell him that the first flight of Prowlers sent up have defected to Australia. Tell him to tell the remaining pilots on base that the man who destroyed their Carrier and marooned them here is currently in orbit in a Vigilante. Tell him to tell them that the _destruction_ of this Vigilante would go a very long way to securing them special privileges and consideration on how well they'll spend their lives here." The lieutenant nodded, saluted and started off. "Oh," John halted her, "and tell them to leave the Leviathans _alone_ but that Vigilante's gotta go." She nodded and continued away. John watched the medic wrap his hand.

Sacrifices had to be made, huh? All right then. He'd be _damned_ if he'd be the only one making them.


	38. A Pirate Is As A Pirate Does

**WHEN THE PROWLERS PEELED AWAY** and back toward Earth, Crichton shifted gears and immediately called D'Argo and Crais and told them of the Monitor's proposal. Both Captains agreed, both glad to be leaving and eager to be gone.

"_You sure it's finished?"_ D'Argo asked him.

"It's getting there," Crichton assured him, "the rest is up to John, not that there's a lot he can do. He's frelling welcome to it. Get your kids ready as soon as."

Both Captains agreed and preparations were quickly underway. The _Vengeance_ and the Monitor moved out of orbit to meet the Leviathans at Earth's moon. Halfway there, D'Argo came back.

"_Okay, this is strange,"_ he told Crichton, "_Moya's received a comm from a Prowler._" D'Argo seemed discomfited. "_It's …_Aeryn."

"What's she want?"

D'Argo sounded incredulous. "_She says she wants to… 'come home'_."

"Then you have a decision to make," Crichton told him, surprised but damning himself if he'd show it, "just make it snappy. We'll be there in moments." He'd not anticipated this. He must have shaken things up more than he'd realized. _Or kicked things loose. _ Not that he cared. She'd be D'Argo's problem.

"_Ah… right."_ D'Argo signed off.

"Unexpected." Shiv commented quietly.

"Unconcerned." Crichton told her pointedly. The Moon was filling up the forward portal. "All we're going to do is make sure they get where they're going."

"And us?"

"That we get where we're going," he adjusted their course slightly, "and finishing this to _my _satisfaction."

"As you say." She checked her board. "Leviathans in range in 150 microts."

Crichton nodded and considered the huge sphere of the Monitor to Hammonside. He'd made a deal and he'd keep it.

The _spirit_ of it, at any rate.


	39. Be A Shame If Something Happened To It

**THEY'D MOORED MOYA AND TALYN** inside a created bay in the Monitor and only awaited the _Vengeance_.

"Not happening," Crichton told them, "we've got a half-dozen Prowlers coming at us."

"Aeryn insists she knows nothing about it." D'Argo informed him.

"John's not giving up," Crichton replied, "didn't expect him to, though." He ordered the _Vengeance_ to intercept and pulled away. "Would have been disappointed if he had. The _Vengeance_ will follow you, Monitor. Meanwhile we'll keep these PK's off your back."

_A TELEMETRY LINK CAN BE ESTABLISHED BETWEEN YOUR VESSEL AND THIS MONITOR – ONCE THROUGH THE LEVIATHANS WILL BE DISCHARGED AND THIS MONITOR WILL RETURN TO THIS SPACE – YOU WILL KNOW BY AN ALTERED SIGNAL – YOU WILL NOT HAVE MUCH TIME WHEN IT COMES_

"That'll do," he told it, "By then we'll only be shortly behind you. Don't wait - get going." The Vigilante was already metras away as the Monitor turned and sped toward the wormhole. Crichton watched it go then turned his attention to the Prowlers. The _Vengeance _had destroyed the first of the six and was dodging the ferocious counter-fire when sensors registered the wormhole opening and closing. Even as it did, a Prowler managed to get past the cannons and hit the Vigilante hard. Systems went out and damage reports started to mount.

"They are gone, Crichton," Shiv told him, "we are taking damage!"

Crichton immediately slewed the _Vengeance_ over and past the Prowlers, rear cannon crippling one as they passed. Another lucky shot by a Prowler blew a generator that set the internal fire control off, filling a large section of the aft with fire retardant foam. Crichton signalled and Shiv dropped a EMP mine which detonated as a Prowler hit it sending a huge pulse that knocked out the systems on the remaining fighters and sent them drifting. The_ Vengeance_ roared away.

"Right. So much for them."

"Telemetry is online and we're still linked," Haxer told them. "Can't _wait _to leave. We've lost three tiers of sensors and the Treblinside defence grid." He hammered keys. "We've also lost three backup generators and the rear weapons control system. Hammonside stabilizers are _gone_. Gonna be a bumpy damn flight." Crichton rose and tapped him as he went by.

"Shiv – head straight to the wormhole and stop for nothing, then give the _Vengeance_ her head. She'll follow the Monitor's line. It'll be the least turbulent passage through." He tapped Hax on the shoulder. "Need your help."

"Where we going?" Haxer rose and followed. "Repairs would be…"

"Can't be helped now. Cargo hold."

They were halfway aft when Haxer posed a question.

"Why did you wait to engage those Prowlers? Why risk damage? You could have dropped that EMP and gone through _with_ the Monitor."

"This is my game and my rules," Crichton told him, not slowing, "but you have to at least let the other guy think he's got a chance."

"You winning, then?" Haxer's tone said he wasn't so sure. Anything that threatened getting back, threatened the woman down in the medbay he was _against_.

"I'm just about to. Gotta open a couple of surprise presents for this party." Crichton led Haxer to the back of the Vigilante's cargo bay and four heavy crates. They'd been there from since before Haxer had joined Crichton's crew. They had Ashkelon standards stamped on their sides.

"You take that one," Crichton told him, pointing to the one closest the big doors, "code is 1, 1, Efka 1." Crichton stepped to the one next to Haxer's as he just shook his head and punched in the code on the crate. The top hissed open and swung up. Haxer looked in and heard Ander exclaim in his head.

"To steal a human phrase …holy _shit_."

"It's not even my birthday," Crichton told him with a sardonic grin, his crate opening as he spoke.

The _Vengeance_ shuddered briefly, seemed to buck and then smoothed out.

"We're in the wormhole," Crichton told the Decrypter, confirmed an instant later by Shiv over the comm, "help me load these two into the ejection tubes."

"If you're gonna do what I think you're gonna do, we better not be _anywhere_ near these things."

"We won't be."

A minute later, using the grapple system to lift them from their crates, the two 'surprise presents' were loaded into the Vigilante's ejection tubes, normally used to drop cargo from ship to ship or into orbit. It could be adapted to other things, depending on the user.

"This is on your station, Hax. Can I depend on you when the time comes?" Crichton asked as they made their way back to Command. Haxer paused of all of two microts.

"Yeah – as long as I can depend on you." He shook his head. "I'll tell you the truth, Boss. I'm not good. I need help. Cha needs help. I can't – I _won't_ wait long. I'm hanging by my frelling fingernails. If it comes down to it, I can do a Hezmana amount of damage."

"I know. Once this is done, you're both at the top of my list." Crichton stepped onto Command and took his place. "You got my word on that."

Haxer stood in the doorway for a moment and then nodded and proceeded to his station. Crichton turned to Shiv. Command was filled with the sound of the Monitor's telemetry signal, a regular staccato of hisses and beats that oddly reminded Crichton of jazz improv. _Dum-hiss-be-dum-hiss-dum-be-dum-hiss_. Catchy. On the forward portal the rushing silver tunnel rolled past.

"We should be getting a proximity and altered ping signal soon. You'll know it when you hear it. That will be the Monitor heading back. When you hear the ping, we're going to take the controls from the AI and get ourselves the rest of the way out."

"Understood."

It was not long in coming. The jazzy tune of the telemetry changed to a distorted series of _tok-tok-toks_ and twangy bendings of noise. When the sound changed to a _tick-bock, tick-bock_, Crichton signalled to Haxer.

"_Now."_

The instant he said it, Haxer hit the ejection control and two shiny cubes dropped from the belly of the Vigilante into the wormhole and instantly flashed away in the silver funnel.

"Hold on to your hair!" Crichton throttled the _Vengeance _as fast as he dared. A systems-monitor panel blew. An external torsion compensator followed suit. Behind them, the wormhole suddenly exploded into a blue-green light so intense it whited-out the aft sensors. A few microts later the leading edge of the shockwave was racing toward them. Crichton knew that the majority of the blast was going the other way, but what was coming at them would hurt. Twenty microts later it reached the Vigilante and hit it _hard_. Systems weakened by the Prowlers cascaded in failure through the ship.

"_Told you the Prowlers were a bad idea!"_ Haxer yelled over the emergency klaxon.

The _Vengeance_ went dark and suddenly began to spin as the other torsion compensator cut out. The red crisis lighting sputtered on and Crichton looked at his crew, holding on for dear life. He sent them a crooked smile and a shrug.

"_Oops."_

The _Vengeance_ was hit with another wave.


	40. Adapt or Perish

**EVERYONE ON EARTH SAW IT.** The light was brighter than the sun, a great arc of blue-green lightning larger than the planet itself spearing out of the wormhole to reach across space and frighten a whole world… before it just as quickly snapped back and died out.

On the surface it interrupted the recording of John Crichton that was being beamed across the whole planet, calling on all Peacekeepers and countries that held them to release the 'refugees' to be sent to 'neutral ground' – Australia – where they could all be seen to and protected both for the world's good and their own. Many countries agreed. Many did not. All knew it would be no small feat to ever have the undertaking approach anything resembling either order or sense.

In SE3 John Crichton destroyed his entire office upon seeing the 'lightning', knowing the wormhole had been shredded and made impassable, roaring in rage and calling down the most vile and profane curses on the heads of the Other and his crew. It took him over a half-hour to allow anyone into the office, where he sat panting on a pile of rubble and another twenty before he could utter a coherent word in response to any query. The reverberations of the event – one day to be called 'the Grand Spark' by some unknown wag – shifted political landscapes after, some realizing the actual scope of the real danger they'd been in and reacting with either more paranoia or more openness, and most Peacekeepers on Earth saw it as the door slamming on their cell, the final boom of the only way out of their looming imprisonment. Some would lash out to die in a 'blaze of glory'. Most would accept what they couldn't change. John eventually emerged and spent a silent hour watching satellite telemetry of the seething, roiling area of space where his wormhole once resided.

In one day he had lost his universe-changing weapon, Aeryn and now his wormhole. He was trying very hard to weigh the pros and cons even while plotting a dark and vicious revenge on his bastard doppelganger should they ever meet again. The entirety of all clandestine operations stemming from what had been termed 'The Crichton Protocols' were in deep jeopardy as all allied governments involved were threatening to pull funding and 'arrest' all those 'responsible'.

Director Akanke for her part was handling it with an unusual calm aplomb, soothing and settling matters with an ease he'd not seen in her before. She had rapidly become indispensable to the process where before she'd always fought him in one way or another.

Williams had rebounded as well, full of plans and intrigues to 'contain' the Peacekeepers for the exclusive use of the US, even though John knew that would be virtually impossible and he'd decided against helping him. Still, he mused when he could see through his anger, let Williams try. It'd keep him busy.

Only two things mollified John as his day wore on.

The first was the President of the United States calling him – in collusion with the UN chiefs and the hyper-secret international extra-terrestrial investigation and control community - and officially asking for his 'help' with the Peacekeeper 'problem'. After some wrangling, John was made the _head_ of what he called the 'Crichton Solution', made indispensable and given veto power over what would happen to any Peacekeeper under allied control and jurisdiction. That effectively made him the boss of Akanke, Williams and anyone else involved in the new 'Peacekeeper Oversight'. He'd been satisfied. Back on top. He would likely spend the rest of life corralling and building and salvaging and working toward his ultimate goal, but he would get there.

The second was a single transmission from space. He'd been sitting in his new, much larger office, discussing the "reparation' of a shipload of Peacekeeper techs to Australia – that country officially accepting its role as PK Haven (certainly aware of the influence it would give them) with Akanke. Her grasp of the situation – and knowledge of PK procedure and thought processes – was constantly amazing and pleasing him. She would be a _very_ good second-in-command. In fact, she'd proposed that very thing only minutes earlier. He'd just decided to make the role official when an aide stuck her head in the door.

"Yes?"

"Sir… we've received a transmission."

"And…?"

"It's from _space_, sir."

John's face had immediately darkened but Akanke held up a hand and asked the aide calmly for further information.

"Let's leave _this _office whole, shall we?" She reminded her new boss. 'Akanke' had no problems with her new position in life. It put her _precisely_ where she needed to be. "What's the source of this transmission?"

"It's from someone called Miriya Breannados...?" The aide told her. "Excuse me, sir, I quote – '_the new love of Crichton's life and his absolute indispensable right hand'_, unquote. She says she has a 'shipload' of _wormhole techs_ and… 'she's ready to entertain opening bids?'"

Akanke turned to look at John with an arched eyebrow and a slight smile. He remembered Miriya's technical skills – amongst other things. "Well," John smiled as he pulled himself to his feet, "This makes the day that much more interesting. This will likely change things…"

He began to see new and interesting possibilities. He motioned for Akanke to join him.

"...wouldn't you agree?"

"Definitely," 'Akanke' agreed. It most _definitely _changed things.


	41. Idle Hands

**THE MONITOR HAD EXITED** the Profundity only a half-minute before the massive outburst would have caught it. It shrugged off any residual energy that had sideswiped it and turned its sensors to discover the cause. After a few moments it realized that the Crichton human had either miscalculated or told it a falsehood. As it deepscanned the remains of the aperture, it discovered the particular route access that led to this system was no longer accessible from this location and that the far end had swung at least a full semi-quadrant – some fifty-three thousand light-years – from its previous location, now pointing at what its databases called the 'H'v'v Singularity', making any reconnection _extremely_ hazardous.

The Monitor moved away from the fractured aperture and made to return to its station-keeping platform beneath the Moon's surface. As it floated over the cratered terrain of Luna, the Monitor reflected that it had encountered more activity in the last while than it had in nearly one hundred million rotations.

Inexplicably, it found itself not actually _wanting_ to return to station-keeping. For a machine intelligence such as itself even a few seconds of computation was several eternities and sitting dormant in a hole on a cinder did not appeal to it, not that it had that particular emotion or anything approaching it, but it did find itself faced with a kind of …dissatisfaction. It had been designed to be _useful_ and so it had been, but inactivity seemed counter to its original protocols.

So, it examined the problem the Crichton human had presented it with his collapse of the Profundity. Its creators had intended that this specific aperture was to remain _open_. All data collected so far indicated that while this aperture could not be repaired, the Profundity had lanes that yet could be linked with the previous aperture points and a new access point to the local Profundity was perfectly possible. Once established a separate exit could be crafted and the one currently pointing at the Singularity bypassed altogether. It would take _time_ of course, yet protocols would be satisfied and the Profundity preserved. The Knowledge on the planet below was safe until access could be achieved and even the Monitor couldn't really calculate how long that might take. It would also give the Monitor something to do. If there was one thing a machine craved, if such a thing could be ascribed to a machine, it was not to be idle.

The Monitor turned from the moon and headed back into open space.

It had a lot of work to do.


	42. New Horizons

**ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORMHOLE,** two Leviathans waited. The wormhole suddenly belched fire and blue lightning and eye-searing light. When it cleared a smoking and dark Vigilante emblazoned with a fierce skull and crossbones drifted at a slow tumble toward them. D'Argo was about to mount a rescue mission when the lights returned and the _Vengeance_ righted herself.

"Crichton!" D'Argo called. "In one piece?"

There was a long and anxious silence until a crackle of static and the fuzzy image of the man appeared on Moya's forward portal.

"_Not bad."_ Crichton replied with a cough. They could see smoke drifting behind him. "_Been better. The most important thing is that frelling wormhole is now closed – for good."_

"What did you do?"

Crichton could see Aeryn in the doorway to Command. If she had any changes of heart it was far, far too late now. In a way, she _had_ shared John's fate as he'd promised himself. He was satisfied and dismissed her from his mind.

"_Remember ol' D'Strand'm'tah? Part of his payment to me was_ four TVK antimatter shatterbombs._ I dropped two_ _down that thing's gullet."_

Chiana clapped and laughed. Even Rygel congratulated him.

"I had wondered what the frell those things had been!" She chortled as he nodded. "Those frellniks never stood a chance!"

"_That was the idea, Chi."_

"What will you do now?" D'Argo asked.

"_I got people down over here. I've got to find a depot to get the_ Vengeance _back into shape, then some medical help_. _After that? Well… there are PK weapon depots and shipping convoys. They aren't gonna loot themselves."_

"You did it," D'Argo shook his head in disbelief, "you actually _did it_."

"_Yeah, it's frelled, all right. I didn't set out to do any of it at all." _He smiled at his 'brother' and said with a chuckle, _"not bad for the copy, huh?"_

"You'll never hear me say that."

Crichton nodded and looked around his own command. His crew was engaged in immediate and essential repairs.

"How's Moya and big T? They come through all right?"

"_Not a scratch. You sure we can't help? We can stick around and…"_

"And what?" Crichton shook his head. "Unless you have military grade torsion compensators and sensor packs, there's not much you can do. Besides, we need to get the frell out of this area. Dekkon Vrage's Carrier _Nightbringer _does a regular patrol through here."

"_How the frell do you know that?"_ Rygel grumbled at him.

"I know where they _all _are, Buckwheat. It's just prudent. My limit's one a week."

Even as he said it, a chime sounded from Shiv's station. Pilot also broke in a microt after.

"_Now hear this: Carrier detected at the far edge of Moya's sensor web! Alert!"_

Crichton shrugged.

"Like I said."

"_Right,"_ D'Argo sighed. "_Everyone stand by to starburst."_ He looked back to Crichton. "_Will we be meeting again?"_

"Eventually."

Crichton nodded as Shiv reported the ability to navigate had returned. Haxer reported the torsion compensators at half but holding. That would get them to a repair depot, if barely. He had one in mind that was reasonably close. "The next time I say _don't_ follow me down any frelling rabbit holes, D? I _mean_ it."

D'Argo chuckled.

"_Can't promise anything, but we'll try."_

Crichton nodded once and killed the transmission. When he looked up, Haxer was at his elbow.

"Cha first." He insisted.

"Repairs first. Then R'skol." Crichton answered. Haxer glared and after a few microts nodded. The ship needed to be safe for the passage. Then the Neurapather. Cha would be fixed and he would be fixed. He had promises of his own to keep.

"Acceptable."

"Then let's get her in gear and get going. Shiv, lay in a course for Rekorvan's Askew Depot. He's the closest."

"_That_ freller," Haxer growled, "he wouldn't know a decent repair job if it bit him in the eema."

"You can oversee it," Crichton told the Decrypter, "and make sure he does it right." Crichton's smile was predatory. Haxer's matched it.

"Good."

Crichton nodded at Shiv and the _Vengeance _turned gingerly and accelerated away from the Leviathans. He _had_ done it, hadn't he? Everything necessary. Now all he had to worry about were fellow pirates, the inevitable war between the Scarrans and Peacekeepers and keeping his head on his shoulders.

Easy.

As the _Vengeance_ straightened herself out and plunged back into the Deep Dark, he felt satisfied with his lot for the first time in a long time. He checked the coordinates for the Askew Depot and nodded to himself. A panel sparked behind him and he heard Thadon curse. A quick order to the AI and he rose to help his crew fix what they could, rolled up his sleeves, grabbed some tools and tore into the panel. He had possibilities now, as he'd not thought he'd have had before. His responsibilities to the life that had been had been discharged. He'd engineered the ending he'd desired and while it wasn't perfect as far as he was concerned, everyone had got what they'd deserved.

Now it was his turn. The panel sparked again and he growled at it and switched the power feed off.

As he worked he found himself wondering what N'sharrasti weather was like in the mid-continents this time of year…


	43. The Sun Also Rises

**FROM THE DOORWAY TO MOYA'S COMMAND**, Aeryn watched the Vigilante leave. She was as close to a home as she'd even known, back where she finally felt she actually belonged.

It had been a mistake to go to Earth and it had not been. She knew more now. She felt far more confident inside herself, the long-straining deep tensions dissipated now that she'd irrevocably set herself on a new course.

Aeryn felt less like she'd deserted him now. John would get where he'd wanted, she decided as she weighed what he had achieved, what he'd lost and what he would gain now and in the future and marveled again at how Crichton had almost literally handed over _everything _John had needed for his so-called long-talked-about 'Golden Age' for humanity.

Crichton_. _

_Yes._ He'd proven over and over that a Crichton he truly was, no matter what he believed himself to be. Only for Crichton could she have taken the steps she'd taken. Only for him could she have made the decisions she'd made, before and now.

As Moya prepared to starburst, she turned from Command to return to her old quarters to wait D'Argo's final decision on whether she could stay on Moya. She was confident that he would decide in her favour – and even if he didn't, she was still as confident that she'd find her way. The Dark was Deep and anything could happen. She'd never been afraid of that Dark. It was home. She knew it well.

She and Crichton would meet again. She knew it with a dead certainty. She planned on it. She'd made her choice and it was one she would not change. As Moya starbursted, Aeryn smiled broadly. They'd weathered the storm and come out on the other side, a little battered, a little bruised but wiser. As one of the Crichtons had once said, there was nowhere to go but up.

_Two_ John Crichtons? She stopped and thought.

Maybe, maybe not.

_One in two places. _

Much more likely. She'd watch and she'd wait.

He needed her.


	44. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

"**YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN?"**

"Yes. It's as complete as scan as could be taken, right down to molecular and quantum alignments in the materials. It's as close to a complete set of blueprints without having actual blueprints."

The grey-uniformed woman handed over the small datachip. As she placed it in his hand she halted.

"I should also inform you that I made as complete a copy of his book as I was able."

"His _book_?"

"His _notebook_, Sir."

"I will see you get your own command for this." His hand curled into a fist around the datachip. She knew that in his eyes he now held the single most important object in the entire universe. Still, copies of copies could have copies and Tech Captain Ereel Caol felt that he could believe whatever he liked.

"Thank you, Sir. It was only my duty."

"I will see it well rewarded."

"Sir, the _Nightbringer _has received our transmission and is on its way."

"Excellent, Braca." He was holding up the datachip, turning it in the light, that death's-head smile that made Braca nervous broad on his chalky face. "We are closer than ever, now."

"Closer, Sir? That would have seemed to have been a rather _substantial setback_. Sir." Braca offered but the other shook his head. Scorpius might be happy, but Braca was down a Carrier and his own command.

"Setback?" Scorpius eyed the datachip gleaming between his fingers. Nerada Lamm reported that the repairs to the Marauder they were in were complete. Scorpius ordered her out of the shadow of the asteroid they'd been hiding behind and to rendezvous with the Carrier. Her skill had saved them and determined that he would reward her, as well.

"There's no setback, Braca," Scorpius told his right hand, completely confident of the truth behind his words, "we're just getting started…"

* * *

**TO BE CONTINUED…?**


End file.
